Dictyostelium Community Resource

Project Summary The Dictyostelium Community Resource (DCR) is an integrated resource for investigators using Dictyostelium and related species for biomedical research and training. The DCR integrates two previously separately funded resources, dictyBase, the model organism database and the Dicty Stock Center, the strain and materials collection for Dictyostelids, to create a comprehensive community resource. The DCR is a combination of a computational and physical resource - each with separate roles but sharing infrastructure and user clientele. Given their related and interconnected goals, this integration of the two promotes efficiency, allowing users to obtain both curated information and research materials from the same organization. The DCR, widely supported by the research community, provides gold standard expert literature curation of genes, functional annotations using the Gene Ontology and a wide range of genomic resources in an intuitive and readily searchable online resource. Dictyostelium is widely used to study cellular processes such as cell motility, chemotaxis, signal transduction, cellular response to drugs, and host-pathogen interactions. Dictyostelium’s genome contains significant orthologs of vertebrate, yeast and microbial genes, attracting researchers interested in a wide variety of biological topics including human disease, multicellular differentiation and comparative genomics. The DCR enables researchers to search, view and download up-to-date genomic, functional and technical information. It is also widely used by teachers/instructors due to the wealth of available teaching materials and research protocols. Dictyostelium investigators depend on dictyBase as their primary community resource, where help from dictyBase staff (DCR help line) or from other users (Dicty ListServ, moderated by the DCR) is available. We are in the final stages of deploying our completely new technology stack. By the end of this year dictyBase will be run entirely as a cloud-based application. This propoal seeks support the operation and expansion of this important community resource. Our goals for this proposal are: (Aim 1) Support the community of investigators using Dictyostelium and related species, (Aim 2) Provide scientific curation of D.discoideum and related species for community of investigators, (Aim 3) Maintain and distribute the strain collection; (Aim 4) Expand the Coverage of Species and Strains; (Aim 5) Improve Accessibility and Utility of the DCR. These aims assure efficient access to NIH and other sponsors funded research and provides a reliable means for Dictyostelium investigators to share their research materials.