VitPhe
Résumé
Like other crop species, grapevines are expected to be affected by climate change. The release of the grapevine genome sequence and the growing availability of high throughput genomic tools, together with integrated analyses of processes allow a comprehensive investigation of the complex mechanisms underlying drought tolerance. To handle the large and heterogeneous datasets generated and the multi-user access, we develop an information system dedicated to data analysis and management. The grapevine genome/phenome database will associate transcript expression levels to ecophysiological and physiological data. This database will link the genomic and phenotypic plasticity observed in different water stress conditions. To address the problem of managing heterogeneous data in multi-sources context we propose a generic model based on the concept of 'object'. An object could be a plant, a part of the plant or a group of plants. Because objects could be connected, hierarchical representation between objects is possible even for multi-level datasets. We distinguish online measurements (non destructive); offline measurements (destructive) and complex measurements such as transcript analyses. XML representation is used for its extensibility to annotate an object or a measurement. To increase interoperability with other information systems we adopt bio-ontologies: the Grape Ontology [1] and the Trait Ontology for morphological traits, ENVO and XEML Ontologies for environmental variables, and Gene Ontology terms for transcriptomic data. Complex phenotypic traits are described using following the EQV model [2]. Web-services are also developed to automate queries and integrate applications over the internet. This information system provides useful resources for the scientists working on genotype × environment interactions in grapevine.