The Genome Annotation Tool (GAT) is a curational infrastructure tool that allows the analysis, storage and visualization of genes and features in multiple genomes. The tool uses the Genomics Unified Schema which has been developed by the CYBIL group of the University of Pennsylvania. Given a new genome sequence, an automated pipeline runs different analysis tools and loads a variety of genome features into GAT database. GAT interface is implemented using Java Servlets, Perl and CGI technique and it runs on Jakarta Tomcat and Apache server. GAT provides a straightforward and user-friendly way for both scientists and curators to access and modify annotation data. The GAT architecture allows easy integration of third party modules into this system.

In the current stage, the GAT system provides the following features for bacterial genome annotation:

  • Automatically detect and annotate genes and gene-related features within genomes.
  • User-friendly search engine provide both keyword search and SRS like search facility.
  • Provide the capability of linking orthologous and paralogous genes and anomalous regions.
  • Allow annotators and curators to directly access and modify the annotation data stored in the database.