Zebrafish Information Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN) is an online biological database of information about the zebrafish (Danio rerio). The zebrafish is a widely used model organism for genetic, genomic, and developmental studies, and ZFIN provides an integrated interface for querying and displaying the large volume of data generated by this research.^[1] To facilitate use of the zebrafish as a model of human biology, ZFIN links these data to corresponding information in other model organism (e.g., mouse) and human disease databases.^[2] Abundant links to external sequence databases (e.g., GenBank) and to genome browsers are included. Gene product, gene expression, and phenotype data are annotated with terms from biomedical ontologies, and ZFIN participates in one of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology's Driving Biological Projects. ZFIN is based at the University of Oregon in the United States, with funding provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

[edit] Contents

ZFIN comprises two principal parts: (1) a website of community news and announcements, and biological resources such as laboratory protocols, a gene nomenclature guide, and anatomy information; and (2) a relational database of biological data that are curated from the scientific literature and of directly submitted data from zebrafish research laboratories (e.g., Thisse high-throughput gene expression analysis^[3]). Information in ZFIN is tightly linked to the web resources of the Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC), which maintains and provides research resources and materials.

ZFIN's relational database interface consists of query forms and display pages for the following biological data types:

Genes, markers, and clones
Gene expression
Sequence alignments (BLAST)
Mutants and transgenic lines
Anatomy
Genetic maps

ZFIN also maintains a database of zebrafish-related publications, laboratories, people, and companies. All information in ZFIN is also accessible via a global site search interface.