News

12 November 2008: New v3.1 Gene Families
New gene families have been constructed at all 9 Phytozome nodes, incorporating for the first time synteny and transversion rates in the identification of orthologs and paralogs. This has the desired effect of reducing the number of pan-grass families (families containing both sorghum and rice genes, but no rosids) at the angiosperm node, meaning more complete pan-angiosperm gene families are obtained. There were 7273 pan-grass families at the angiosperm node in the previous non-synteny-based clustering, compared to only 1144 in the current clustering. Please see the details page for more information.

Any bookmarked URLs involving specific gene family ids (Cluster ids) will no longer go the the appropriate cluster summary page. Contact the Phytozome team if you need a mapping of specific cluster ids from the previous gene family build to the current v3.1 build.

4 August 2008: New search functionality
Gene family searches can now be restricted by organism. The "Family Members" filter on the Gene Family Search page restricts the gene family search to only those families that match the set of organism constraints specified by the filter. You can choose to search only those gene families that include or exclude any of the organisms present at that node. By default, all organisms are allowed, and none are excluded.

4 August 2008: Welcome to the new homepage!
You can now select organims for browsing/blasting, and nodes for gene family searching/blasting, either by clicking on tree nodes or using the pulldowns in the upper left hand corner. We hope this proves convenient.

27 June 2008: Upgraded BLAST facility
Phytozome now employs a queuing system to handle BLAST jobs, allowing users to submit larger jobs and to be notified by email when their jobs complete. BLAST jobs can now run up to 15 minutes for email notification, and 5 minutes in interactive mode. These limits will be relaxed as resources become available (please, as a courtesy to your fellow users, no BAC blasting against unmasked assemblies at low stringency!) . The BLAST results have also been recast into a more intuitive format combining the graphical and text views in a single panel. Finally, problems associated with faulty links from BLAST to Gbrowse caused by URL's with a very large number of HSPs have been resolved.

14 May 2008: Phytozome 3.0 is here!
The latest release, v3.0, of Phytozome is now available. v3.0 expands on Phytozome v2.0 by including:

26 March 2008: Chromosome-based assembly and annotation of Sorghum bicolor
v1.0, the first chromosome-based assembly (Sbi1) and annotation(Sbi1.4) is now available. The current Phytozome clustering still uses the v0 sorghum gene models, but we are providing access to the v1.0 browser, blast interface, and data download site here . v1.0 sorghum models will be included in Phytozome clusters in the next Phytozome release.

11 January 2008: First look at soybean (Glycine max) assembly and annotation
A preliminary assembly and annotation of the soybean (Glycine max) genome is now available. Information and access to the data can be found here.

8 January 2008: Minor update to Phytozome Interface
We've removed the Click-Info panel from the Cluster Summary page. The information formerly displayed there, systenic gene cluster information and PFAM domain information, is now displayed in pop-up boxes that appear when mousing over a syntenic gene or domain. To freeze the pop-up display and access the hyperlinks inside, simply click on the gene or domain image.

12 November 2007: Composite cluster capability added to Phytozome
We've added the ability to combine the gene clusters found in single node keyword or BLAST search into a "composite" cluster that can be viewed in a cluster summary page. This is especially helpful when dealing with cases of "under-clustering," where a cohesive gene family is incorrectly broken up into several smaller clusters. Multiple sequence alignments and consensus sequences (used for BLAST searches) are calculated on-the-fly for composite clusters with fewer than 75 members. More information on this feature can be found here and here .

23 October 2007: Minor update to Phytozome interface
Version 2.0.2 of the Phytozome website includes three new features: the ability to show search and cluster details for only those species of interest, a Get Sequences function that allow you to download gene family sequences and MSAs, and the ability to view gene family MSAs (Multiple Sequence Alignments) directly from the cluster summary page. To hide details on particular species, select the "Display" tab on the Search Results page and uncheck the species you wish to hide. You can also do the same on the "Display Options" tab on the Cluster summary page. To download gene family sequences, click on the Get Sequences tab and select the desired sequence type. To view MSAs, select the "Multiple Sequence Alignment" tab onthe Cluster summary page. For more information, please see the help page .

1 July 2007: New Website
A complete rework of the Phytozome website has just been completed. Navigation has been simplified, synteny viewing features have been enhanced, the individual cluster view display can be customized, and help documentation has been expanded. The genomes of individual organisms can now be searched via BLAST, and their annotations viewed within Gbrowse. In particular,

1 July 2007: Two additional plant genomes added
Phytozome now includes a preliminary annotation of the grass Sorghum bicolor , as well as the version 1.1 annotation of the moss Physcomitrella patens . These genomes are joined by TIGR release 5 of the rice (Oryza sative) genome , TAIR release 6 of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome , JGI v1.1 of the poplar genome (Populus Trichocarpa), bringing to five the number of complete plant genomes analyzed in Phytozome v2.0.

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