Informatics 



Data access through interactive workstations. One of the great challenges 

 of the human genome project is how to integrate and provide access to the 

 growing mass of genomic data. One solution is development of sophisticated 

 worl^stations that would provide a uniform user interface with all map and 

 sequence databases. With the prototype developed at Lawrence Berkeley 

 Laboratory's Human Genome Center, the user examines data at increasing 

 resolution by "enlarging " selected regions of successive displays. The three 

 illustrations shown here display (a) the full complement of chromosomes, (b) a 

 single chromosome with locations of human disease genes, and (c) the 

 nucleotide sequence for a selected region within that chromosome. Within this 

 region, the order of the nucleotide bases is displayed by the following colors: A 

 (chartreuse), C (orange), G (light blue), and T (pink). The icons at the bottom or 

 side of figures a-c indicate access to other levels of information about each 

 chromosome including staining, gene mapping, morbidity (disease), and 

 sequence. In figures a and b, the dark blue bands indicate the characteristic 

 Giemsa staining patterns; the chromosome centromeres are pink; and the yellow 

 areas on the chromosomes represent the heterochromatic regions (C-banding 

 pattern). Less characterized areas are light blue. (Photographs a-c provided by 

 the Human Genome Center, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.) 



Informatics 



GnomeView Workstation. The mosaic shown in the bottom photograph 

 illustrates the versatility of the X-window system that is part of the GnomeView 

 Interface currently in use at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest 

 Laboratory. Shown on the same screen are simultaneous views of chromo- 

 somes at various magnifications (upper screen), restriction maps (windows on 

 lower left), two magnification levels of a sequence from GenBank' (windows on 

 lower right), and a GenBank" file information header (text window, lower 

 screen). The X-window system, coupled with the network model database 

 system of the GnomeView Interface, allows easy access and simultaneous 

 viewing of information from all levels of the human genome hierarchy. 

 (Photograph provided by Richard Douthart, Pacific Northwest Laboratory.) 



