Database Description

Protein sequence databases - Protein domain databases; protein classification

Orthology is a homologous relationship among genes derived from a common ancestor by speciation. Genes in such a relationship are referred to as orthologs or orthologous genes and provide important clues to clarify the process of genome evolution and to predict the divergence of gene function based on syntenic relationships among species. PGDBj Ortholog DB is a database that provides orthologous relationships of genes that are computationally determined according to similarities between amino acid sequences, and currently consists of 40 species of Viridiplantae (green plants) and 213 species of Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae).

PGDBj Ortholog DB is hierarchically organized to reflect evolutionary relationships among species and taxa. By connecting entries of multiple plant genome databases to this database, PGDBj Ortholog DB can work as a hub database and provide a way to gather and organize the relevant data in the databases. By submitting queries to the PGDBj Ortholog DB with keywords or amino acid sequences, users can obtain the list of the links to the relevant entries of the plant genome databases in relation to the functions and characteristics of genes across various species and taxa including both model plants and crop plants. Following the links obtained, users can retrieve the actual entries from the databases.