Call for FANTOM2 MATRICS volunteer curators

We call for collaborators for FANTOM2 MATRICS (Mouse Annotation Teleconference for RIKEN cDNA sequences).

Following the FANTOM1 meeting, members of RIKEN Genome Exploration Research Group have continued to isolate and sequence mouse full-length cDNAs. Annotating these sequences is essential to facilitate functional genomic studies. To accomplish this task, we would like to sponsor FANTOM2 collaborative research.

The FANTOM2 collaborative research is divided into three parts:

1. Typhoon meeting (A brain storming meeting to outline strategies for higher annotation using the 45,000 sequence FANTOM typhoon collection as a test set)
2. MATRICS (Mouse Annotation Teleconference for RIKEN cDNA Sequences)
3. FANTOM2 Meeting (A gathering to report and discuss annotation results)

1. Typhoon meeting
We held the FANTOM2 Typhoon meeting from October 15th to 19th, 2001 to discuss strategies and rules for higher-level functional annotation using information including expression profile, mapping and protein interaction data, and conventional sequence similarity search. We also discussed how the MATRICS (online annotation of RIKEN sequences) meeting should be organized.

* Analysis and automated annotation for RIKEN sequences before MATRICS phase. After the Typhoon meeting, RIKEN prepared 60,770 fully-sequenced mouse cDNA sequences (the FANTOM2 sequence set) to annotate for FANTOM2 collaborative research. RIKEN scientists and FANTOM2 collaborators will analyze the FANTOM2 sequence set using various methods such as sequence homology searches or domain searches against public database or CDS prediction. Automated annotation of the FANTOM2 sequence set will be executed before MATRICS work begins using the results of these searches. These automated annotation results will be submitted to DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank database along with the FANTOM2 sequences.

2. MATRICS (Human curation phase)
MATRICS stands for Mouse Annotation Teleconference for RIKEN cDNA Sequence. This will start from the end of January to the end of March in 2002. In this teleconference, curators will annotate function of RIKEN cDNA sequences with the FANTOM system via Internet at their office using a secure server system (128-bit encrypted). MATRICS curators will annotate at least 500 RIKEN sequences according to the basic annotation guideline using the annotation interface of FANTOM system. We expect that MATRICS curators will explore novel biological findings or interesting genes and present their results at the Cherry Blossom meeting which will be held in the next spring, 2002.

3. FANTOM2 Cherry Blossom meeting
After the MATRICS, we plan to hold a week-long meeting next spring, 2002 to report and discuss the functional annotation results and biologically interesting findings. The fruitful outcomes of these discussions will be described in a manuscript that will be submitted for publication as soon as possile.

If you have concerns about the collaboration for FANTOM2-MATRICS, please send e-mail including information below to the FANTOM administrative office (fantom-adm@gsc.riken.go.jp).

Registration deadline:Janualy 31th, 2002

1. Your Name
2. E-mail Address
3. Affiliation
4. Field of Study
5. Research interest for FANTOM2 collaborative research

FANTOM administrative office
Genome Exploration Research Group
Genomic Sciences Center (GSC)
RIKEN Yokohama Institute
1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama,
Kanagawa 230-0045 Japan
phone: +81-45-503-9222
fax: +81-45-503-9215