Release of ORNL's Mutant Mouse Database (MMDB) (v2.0) June 2001)

The Life Sciences Division's Mammalian Genetics and Genomics Section (MGGS) is pleased to announce the release of the ORNL Mutant Mouse Database, version 2.0 (http://bio.lsd.ornl.gov/mouse/). The ORACLE-based MMDB summarizes both the current and past holdings of mutant mice in ORNL's Mammalian Genetics Research Facility (MGRF), and includes information on more than 800 independent mutant alleles and mouse stocks. The majority (currently, ~700) of the mutations catalogued in the MMDB were induced at ORNL by exposure of mice to radiation or chemicals, or were recovered at ORNL as spontaneous mutations. However, the MMDB also includes mutations and mouse stocks imported from various donors; likewise, it identifies external investigators maintaining ORNL mice that are no longer maintained in the current MGRF. The MMDB is fully searchable in terms of genetic locus, specific mutant allele, chromosome, mutation type, strain type, and strain name (the latter of most utility to MGGS staff themselves). There is a large amount of information associated with each mutant allele (including method of induction where appropriate, molecular characteristics where available, and phenotype information for most). Most of this information was compiled by Dr. L. B. Russell, a prominent leader of ORNL's mouse-genetics program for over 50 years, with the valuable assistance of P. R Hunsicker, MGGS's senior research technician, and of B. L. Alspaugh, SAIC, the database's software engineer. Although it is not yet possible to search the current MMDB for "phenotype" or "trait", we expect to add that additional, and important, capability soon in a subsequent MMDB release.

The MMDB is a very important, central component to the current efforts of the Mouse Genetics and Genomics Program. It provides a user-friendly advertisement to the outside world of the numerous mutations, available either in live stocks or in cryopreserved embryos or gametes, that have arisen in the 50+-year history of the ORNL Mammalian Genetics Research Facility. Likewise, along with the MGG web pages (http://bio.lsd.ornl.gov/mgd/), the MMDB also provides an important vehicle for the scientific community to follow the progress of the MGG program's current mutagenesis efforts for functional genomics. One can click on any mutation found in the MGGS's mutagenesis web pages (http://bio.lsd.ornl.gov/mgd/mutagenesis/) and be taken directly into the MMDB, where constantly curated information about each new mutation is stored. As the MGGS and its collaborators continue to characterize many of these ORNL-generated mouse mutations, we plan to add to the MMDB additional phenotype information for each mutant, such as color images, video, micrographs for histology, etc. The MMDB will also be an important component of the mutation-advertisement and analysis efforts of the Tennessee Mouse Genome Consortium (TMGC; http://tnmouse.org), as the TMGC's mutagenesis and functional genomics efforts proceed.

Technical Contacts:

• E. M. Rinchik, (845) 878-1196; (865) 241-2158 (rinchikem@ornl.gov)
• B. L. Alspaugh, (865) 574-0867
• P. R. Hunsicker, (865) 574-0867
• L. B. Russell, (865) 574-0860

Funding Source: DOE-KP