<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>The completion of the <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> genome and the large collections of other plant
sequences generated in recent years have sparked extensive functional genomics
efforts. However, the utilization of this data is inefficient, as data sources are
distributed and heterogeneous and efforts at data integration are lagging behind.
PlaNet aims to overcome the limitations of individual efforts as well as the
limitations of heterogeneous, independent data collections. PlaNet is a distributed
effort among European bioinformatics groups and plant molecular biologists to
establish a comprehensive integrated database in a collaborative network. Objectives
are the implementation of infrastructure and data sources to capture plant genomic
information into a comprehensive, integrated platform. This will facilitate the
systematic exploration of <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> and other plants. New methods for data
exchange, database integration and access are being developed to create a highly
integrated, federated data resource for research. The connection between the
individual resources is realized with BioMOBY. BioMOBY provides an architecture
for the discovery and distribution of biological data through web services. While
knowledge is centralized, data is maintained at its primary source without a need for
warehousing. To standardize nomenclature and data representation, ontologies and
generic data models are defined in interaction with the relevant communities.Minimal
data models should make it simple to allow broad integration, while inheritance allows
detail and depth to be added to more complex data objects without losing integration.
To allow expert annotation and keep databases curated, local and remote annotation
interfaces are provided. Easy and direct access to all data is key to the project.</p>
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Comp Funct Genomics. 2004 Mar; 5(2):184-189