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New gene family browser offers comprehensive view of genes and their interrelationships
Friday, December 5, 2003
Written by Branwyn Wagman
Note: As of 5/28/04, the name of this tool was changed to "Gene Sorter" As a step to a more gene-oriented view of the human genome, Jim Kent and the UCSC Genome Bioinformatics Group have introduced a powerful new tool available to researchers, the Gene Family Browser (GFB). This new browser, a feature of the UCSC Genome Browser, sorts and filters data, offering detailed information about each known gene. Of the gene browsing tools now available, this is the most flexible and comprehensive. This interactive tool allows researchers to access the data on line, determining the data sets most useful to them. On its first day on line, September 29, 2003, the GFB received 1,400 visits. The human notion of family often transcends ancestral relationships and crosses to functional or geographic relationships. The GFB expands this context-driven view of the notion of family into the realm of genomics by grouping genes that work together even if they have no common ancestors. The GFB currently shows 6 types of “familial” relationships, such as protein-level homology, similarity of gene expression profiles, or genomic proximity.  MORE... about the gene sorter
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