TRANSFAC 3.1

[Edgar Wingender]

The new release 3.1 of the TRANSFAC database is now available at the=20
following WWW site:

http://transfac.gbf-braunschweig.de

(Wingender et al., 1997, Nucleic Acids Res. 25:265-268).=20

TRANSFAC is a database on eukaryotic transcription factors and their=20
binding sites. As new features, it now includes the complete amino acid=20
sequences of the transcription factors (FACTOR table) and links to the=20
Eukaryotic Promoter Database (EPD) in its SITE table. Moreover, the data=20
volume has increased comprising now 2080 FACTOR and 4362 SITE entries.

As a new search option, you may retrieve factors by their molecular=20
weight.
Moreover, you will find a SRS5 version which offers additional retrieval=20
options for the TRANSFAC tables, for EMBL, SwissProt, PIR, =85 (for this,=
=20
we give credit to Thure Etzold, EBI, Hinxton).

As for release 3.0, there are also extensive links with TRRD=20
(Transcription Regulatory Regio Database) and COMPEL (Composite Elements=20
Database), maintained at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics (ICG,=20
Novosibirsk, Russia: N. A. Kolchanov/A. Kel et al.).

The sequence information contained in the SITE table is used by=20
PatternSearch 1.0 for interactive sequence scanning for potential TF=20
binding sites.

An updated library of matrices for transcription factor binding sites=20
will be provided very soon which can be used for sequence analysis with=20
MatInspector release 2.0 (Quandt et al., 1995, Nucleic Acids Res.=20
23:4878-4884).=20
This tool is available at=20
=09
http://transfac.gbf-braunschweig.de/cgi-bin/matSearch/matsearch.pl
or at
http://www.gsf.de/BIODV/matinspector.html
(Thomas Werner and coworkers).

Please, forward this mail to your colleagues which may be interested in=20
using these tools

On behalf of the TRANSFAC team:
Edgar Wingender
Thomas Heinemeyer

GBF - Braunschweig, February 28, 1997

=20


---------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Edgar Wingender
Molecular Bioinformatics of Gene Regulation
GBF
Mascheroder Weg 1
D-38124  Braunschweig
Germany

Phone    49 - 531 - 6181-427
FAX       49 - 531 - 6181-266