Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary science emerging from interaction of computer, statistics, biology and mathematics to analyze genome arrangement and contents, biological sequence data, predict the structure and function of macromolecules that use in interpreting and decoding plant genome. The broad amounts of data produced in life sciences resulted to the evolution and development of bioinformatics. Omics, bioinformatics and computational tools are very essential to understand genomics and the molecular systems that underlie several plant functions. Various new omic layers such as genome, hormonome, metabalome, interactome, and epigenome analysis have emerged by technological advances. Such integration of information enables and facilitates the identification of expression of gene which helps to interpret the relationship between phenotype and genotype, thus approving from genome to phenome system-wide analysis. Earlier biological research that used laboratories, plant clinics and field is now at In-silico or computers level (Computational). Bioinformatics develops software, algorithms, databases and tools of data analysis to make discoveries and infer the information. Application of various bioinformatics tools and databases enable analysis, storage, annotation, visualization and retrieval of outcomes to helps enhanced understanding in living system research. Thus it will help to improve the plant quality based on health care disease diagnosis. In this chapter we describe the bioinformatics approaches (databases and tools) in plant science and implication of next generation sequencing technology (NGS) on crop genetics.

A Role of Bioinformatics in Agriculture

SUMMARY Hundreds of publicly-accessible biology data sites have appeared in the last twenty years. Sequence, microarray, and protein structure data are now stored in large complex databases. Bioinformatics, the computational manipulation of data to derive meaningful information, has emerged as a distinct field. Bioinformatics combines the subject expertise of the biologists with the data handling expertise of the computer scientists. There are information-science issues associated with these data: the databasing of information, the heterogeneity of the data, the complexity of the databases, the range of audiences being served, and the emergence of database standards. Librarians can make contributions in this developing area.

Biology Databases for the New Life Sciences

Plant genome databases play an important role in the archiving and dissemination of data arising from the international genome projects. Recent developments in bioinformatics, such as new software tools, programming languages and standards, have produced better access across the Internet to the data held within them. An increasing emphasis is placed on data analysis and indeed many resources now provide tools allied to the databases, to aid in the analysis and interpretation of the data. However, a considerable wealth of information lies untapped by considering the databases as single entities and will only be exploited by linking them with a wide range of data sources. Data from research programs such as comparative mapping and germplasm studies may be used as tools, to gain additional knowledge but without additional experimentation. To date, the current plant genome databases are not yet linked comprehensively with each other or with these additional resources, although they are clearly moving toward this. Here, the current wealth of public plant genome databases is reviewed, together with an overview of initiatives underway to bind them to form a single plant genome infrastructure.

Jo L. Dicks

Papers

Plant genome databases: from references to inference tools.