ORCAE

ORCAE enables community-driven, gene-centric curation and maintenance of structural and functional annotations for eukaryotic genomes (plant, fungal, and animal), addressing corrections to automated annotations produced by high-throughput sequencing projects.

Key Features:

• Gene-centric pages: Consolidates predicted features, evidence tracks, and curated annotations for each gene.
• Wiki-style versioning: Stores and versions all revisions to maintain complete edit histories and traceability.
• Integrated quality-control checks: Performs quality-control checks on annotations.
• Automated propagation and regeneration: Automatically propagates updates and regenerates derived gene information following edits.
• Decentralized curation: Enables distributed groups to contribute simultaneous annotations to shared gene records.

Scientific Applications:

• Genome annotation refinement: Curates structural and functional annotations for plant, fungal, and animal genomes.
• Correction of automated annotations: Improves automated annotations generated from high-throughput sequencing projects.
• Evidence integration: Consolidates predicted features and evidence tracks to support annotation decisions.
• Maintenance of living genomic resources: Manages and disseminates ongoing curated genome information and annotation efforts.

Methodology:

ORCAE implements a gene-centric, wiki-style architecture that consolidates predicted features and evidence tracks per gene, stores and versions revisions for traceability, integrates quality-control checks, automatically propagates updates, and regenerates derived gene information following edits.