A compendium of genetic variant data

Laboratory strains are genetically unstable if exposed to selective pressure as encountered, for example, during molecular cloning, fermentation, or adaptive laboratory evolution experiments. This genetic variation is the consequence of an adaptation process of the microorganism to stress conditions, e.g., high pressure or temperature, nutrient limitation, or toxic byproduct concentrations. The evolved strains display then new phenotypes: tolerance to a toxic byproduct or higher temperature, improved production rate of a byproduct, or higher uptake rates of nutrients. To understand the effects of those variations, it is necessary to collect and sort this genomic information in an organized fashion, including all relevant physiological data (e.g., growth rate, metabolomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, etc.). We propose a systematic way to collect heterogeneous datasets into a coherent database where the physiological characteristics of mutants can easily be queried. This database contains the experimental information sorted into normalized units. The aim of this repository is to become a golden-­standard of genetic variation information for microorganisms, providing standardized data obtained from distinct experiments. This compendium of genetic variant is a critical step to develop approaches to automatically and systematically characterize mutated strains in the future.