Plant Chromatin Database - ChromDB

[Rich Jorgensen]

Dear Arabidopsis Researchers:

We propose to expand the Plant Chromatin Database (ChromDB; 
www.chromdb.org) into a true community database for all plant 
biologists interested in the contribution of chromatin proteins to 
the biology of plants. Carolyn Napoli and I will submit a proposal to 
NSF's Plant Genome Research Program to this end and would like to ask 
for letters of support from anyone who uses ChromDB, or would like to 
use an expanded ChromDB that will serve the whole community, rather 
than any particular project or constituency. We will extend 
annotation and curation of chromatin protein homologs to all plant 
species and provide means for integrating information across species 
in a phylogenetic context. In addition, we will be adding a wide 
variety of new features such providing sequence data in GFF format, 
presentation via a track viewer such as GBrowse, and presentation of 
edited, user-submitted curation. An editorial board with broad 
representation has been constituted to advise and direct ChromDB and 
to oversee user submissions of information.

Success of this proposal will depend on our ability to demonstrate 
and convey a sense of community interest and support. We would 
appreciate comments on the ways in which you find ChromDB to be 
useful, whether in research, teaching or both. We are also very 
interested in your suggestions as to what additional features would 
be desirable. If there are flaws or deficiencies you would like to 
see corrected, please let us know about these too. Your message can 
be as brief or as detailed as you like. We plan to submit our 
proposal on or about January 20, 2004.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Napoli, PI
Rich Jorgensen, co-PI