Should the proposed database(s) be specific to E. coli or more general for all bacteria?
Of the major categories of information described above, some need to be specific to a given organism (E. coli K12 in this case), while others will be better achieved by a broader approach. • Annotations of genes with respect to transcription and translation starts and stops, prophages and other elements will clearly be specific to a given genome. Regulatory circuits and information on regulation may or may not be specific. • Citations and predicted gene function and organization will depend upon both E. coli-specific and general information. A database that identified protein homologs throughout bacterial species and indicated those for which there is experimental information and what sort of information would be useful for all bacterial genes. • High throughput data needs to be compiled in an organism-specific form, at least in the near future, both for useful comparisons between different experiments and for correlation with the genome organization (operons), particularly for genes o
