Bioinformatic Resources for Plant Genomic Research

Abstract: Genome assembly and annotation are crucial steps in plant genomics research as they provide valuable insights into plant genetic makeup, gene regulation, evolutionary history, and biological processes. In the emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies, a plethora of genome assembly tools have been developed to meet the diverse needs of plant genome researchers. Choosing the most suitable tool to suit a specific research need can be daunting due to the complex and varied nature of plant genomes and reads from the sequencers. To assist informed decision-making in selecting the appropriate genome assembly and annotation tool(s), this review offers an extensive overview of the most widely used genome and transcriptome assembly tools. The review covers the specific information on each tool in tabular data, and the data types it can process. In addition, the review delves into transcriptome assembly tools, plant resource databases, and repositories (12 for Arabidopsis, 9 for Rice, 5 for Tomato, and 8 general use resources), which are vital for gene expression profiling and functional annotation and ontology tools that facilitate data integration and analysis.