News

2010-08-03 Slow service due to vacation time

Since a part of the GABI-Kat staff goes to vacation in August, delivery of seed might be a bit delayed between beginning of August and middle of September. The delay may also extend to answering Emails send to the info mailbox, as well as to taking up new seed requests.

2010-08-03 New donation of GABI-Kat seeds to NASC
A total of 100 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.341 individual T3 seed bags (100 T3-sets). In total, 8.246 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. These lines cover 8.334 confirmed insertion alleles.

2010-06-10 New donation of GABI-Kat seeds to NASC
A total of 99 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.289 individual T3 seed bags (99 T3-sets).

2010-04-23 New donation of GABI-Kat seeds to NASC - now more than 8000 donated lines!
A total of 98 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.263 individual T3 seed bags (98 T3-sets). In total, 8.047 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. These lines cover 8.128 confirmed insertion alleles.

2010-04-16 Integration of SimpleSearch pages into the GABI-Kat website
The SimpleSearch pages are realised via PHP, and so far these pages were presented on pages independent from the GABI-Kat website. Now, the SimpleSearch search pages as well as the output pages are integrated into the Joomla-based GABI-Kat website. Still, the access links that allow access to the description of a given line from an URL presented at (for example) NASC continue to work.
Since the integration is new, it might be that not all features work as expected. Please contact us by Email (see footer) if you detect a bug, a typo or any other problem.

2010-03-10 Nature News article: Plant biologists fear for A. thaliana project
The article addresses the fact that funding for basic research with the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana is decreasing. However, it is clear that "A. thaliana is not yet done", that there are still many central processes of plant biology are not understood (the article mentions formation of cell walls), and that crop plant research often relies on candidate genes and principles unraveled in A. thaliana and other models. Sequence annotation of crop genomes relies on functional data from model systems. Clearly, we will not be able to tell the function of each A. thaliana gene by the end of 2010. But if work with the models is reduced significantly, this will have severe effects on the progress of plant biology in areas where gene functions are not yet known and principles are not worked out.

A total of 51 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 654 individual T3 seed bags (51 T3-sets). In total, 7.949 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. These lines cover 8.030 confirmed insertion alleles. Together with NASC, we have detected some small errors with individual lines in former donations which have been corrected. These corrections explain why the numbers do not "add up" exactly.

A total of 100 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.280 individual T3 seed bags (100 T3-sets). In total, 7.899 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. These lines cover 7.991 confirmed insertion alleles. You can use SimpleSearch to check for the confirmation sequences of these insertion alleles which cover in general the LB::genome fusion.

2009-12-18 Delivery of more seed delayed to January 2010

During this week, the last seeds of newly confirmed lines have left the lab for 2009. Since the coming holidays may interfere with international delivery, the next seed will be put into the mail in the second week of 2010. 

We wish all our users a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and GREAT phenotypes for the experiments in 2010!

A total of 75 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.023 individual T3 seed bags (75 T3-sets). In total, 7.799 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. These lines cover 7.887 confirmed insertion alleles.

2009-11-22 Nature News article on TAIR funding cuts

The article and the comments clearly indicate that a loss of TAIR will have a significant and strongly negative impact on plant biology. Also GABI-Kat relies on data from TAIR and from MATDB (the Ath database version from MIPS/GSF/HZM). The recent update of SimpleSearch also covered updating links to TAIR and MATDB, and removed dead links to TIRG websites. A stable reference database for THE model organism in plant biology is required, and it should not be just one!

2009-11-17 Update of the SimpleSearch GABI-Kat data browser

The update addressed the accessibility of information regarding insertions which failed in our confirmation process, and also the visualization of already confirmed and donated alleles versus insertions that still need to be confirmed. We have changed the color code for the "triangle flags" - see here for details. Insertions that are not studied yet and which are available for ordering are shown in green as before.  

2009-11-10 Delivery of some old requested lines 

While working on the improved detection of "contamination groups" (see FAQ 10), we found a number of seed requests in which users did not order all members of the respective contamination group (FAQ 10). Most of these lines are now already at  NASC, but we are sending out emails that tell about the availability of the requested insertion allele, although this allele has been confirmed in a line that has not been ordered.

2009-11-09 Update of the SimpleSearch GABI-Kat data browser under way

The update will address mainly the accessibility of information regarding insertions which failed in our confirmation process. Insertions that are known to show up several times in different lines and which go back to the same allele ("contaminations", see FAQ entry No 10) are linked to the corresponding confirmed line. The graphic view page shows which insertions are already confirmed & donated to NASC (blue), and which insertions failed to confirm (red). Insertions that are not studied yet and which are available for ordering are shown in green as before. This color-code is used on the search-result pages as well. 

In the transition phase it may happen that not all new features work as expected. 

A total of 99 newly confirmed GABI-Kat lines have been donated to NASC. This donation batch contains 1.388 individual T3 seed bags (99 T3-sets). In total, 7.724 T3-sets of which each represents a single GABI-Kat line have been donated so far. One line, which turned out to be a false-positive, has been retired at NASC.

2009-09-18 Starting September 2009, we can accept payment by credit cardAfter many years of continued effort, we can now also accept payment by credit card. Only VISA and MASTER are possible, but that's better than before! The details of the procedure are described in FAQ entry No 25. 

2009-08-24 Recovery from vacation time 

The delays in delivery of seed of confirmed lines and in Email replies to questions sent to the info mailbox caused by holidays are being almost resolved. Quite some seed will leave the lab this week. 

2009-07-20 Slow service due to vacation time 

Since a part of the GABI-Kat staff goes to vacation, delivery of seed might be a bit delayed between end of July and middle of August. The delay may also extend to answering Emails send to the info mailbox, as well as to taking up new seed requests.

2009-07-19 New donations of GABI-Kat seeds to NASC

Since last month, the total number of GABI-Kat lines donated to NASC has been increased to 7.328. In these lines, there are 7.423 confirmed insertion alleles. The respective allele-specific confirmation sequences are available via SimpleSearch. You can check this page as an example; to reach this page for your favorite gene, start with a gene ID (AGI code) or line ID (e.g. 048E04) query on the SimpleSearch start page. Between June 30th and July 16th, 4 donation batches representing 399 T3-sets were sent to NASC for distribution.