Our goal is to provide resources for research on the biology of ageing that take advantage of the modern information age. The genomic revolution, in particular, has made it possible to study ageing at the genome level. We aim to create computer-based resources that allow easy storage, automation, and the development of complex models. Ultimately, we would like our work to help understand the genetic basis of human ageing.

The Human Ageing Genomic Resources (HAGR) is an interdisciplinary project started in 2002 at the Ageing and Stress Group, led by Olivier Toussaint, of the University of Namur (FUNDP) in Namur, Belgium. At present, HAGR is located at the senescence.info website. HAGR's project leader is João Pedro de Magalhães, formerly at the University of Namur, now in George Church's lab at Harvard Medical School. Steven Austad, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is AnAge's expert mammalogist and curator. Vadim Fraifeld and Arieh Budovsky, of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, are curators for GenAge's list of ageing-related genes in model organisms and for GenAge's list of genes analyzed for their possible association with human longevity.

Researchers involved in HAGR are affiliated with:

Many people contributed their knowledge, opinions, and/or data to this project, and we express our gratitude to the many biologists cited as personal communications in AnAge. We thank Jamie Gillooly, Van Savage, and Andrew McKechnie for supplying us with data prior to publication, as well as Robert Ricklefs and the late Marvin Jones for useful insights. AnAge took research and staff from the Ernst Mayr Library. Further thanks to Matt Kaeberlain, Fabian Bastin, Jason Stajich, Domingos Magalhães, and everyone of the Linux and Perl/BioPerl communities for their invaluable assistance.

Grants

Our work was initially supported by grants from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal and the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Belgium. We also acknowledge past support of the European Social Fund through the III Quadro Comunitário de Apoio. Presently, our work is supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, through its Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science program.

With so many discoveries yet to be made in the biology of ageing, our main goal is to keep the databases up-to-date. Even so, a few new features are in preparation.

We are working to create a repository of gene expression changes during ageing. It would also be interesting to develop a database of transcription factor matrices to analyze the gene expression data. As for GenAge, ideas include implementing BLAST and creating a new category for genes associated with age-related neurodegenerative diseases. For each entry, we would like to include more detailed descriptions of known human polymorphisms and genetic manipulations in animal models. GenAge was designed to cope with different types of protein-protein interactions and even interactions between different molecules; implementing such features is in of our plans. We would also like to improve the pathway analysis and visualization tools.

In addition, we want to make more of our Perl modules available online and several enhancements can be made to the many search and data-analysis tools. For instance, we want to include wildcards in the search engines as well as optimise the structure of AnAge to make queries faster and more accurate. Because phylogeny in AnAge is inferred from taxonomy, it would be useful to feature a more detailed phylogeny of the species in the database. Lastly, we are thinking of including new visual tools, such as charts, to display results and more advanced download options.

The protein on the top bar is the helicase domain of Sgs1 (PDB: 1D8B) while lamin A/C (PDB: 1IFR) was used to generate the protein image on the left side bar. On the top bar is also a nucleotide sequence from the promoter of the p66^shc gene and a digital version of the same region. The graph represents a prediction of transmembrane regions of the Sgs1 protein made using the TMpred program. The proteins and the DNA were rendered using PyMOL. On the side bar is also the CDS of p66^shc and several images of mammals created using the animal fonts by Alan Carr.

The image in the genes section uses as models IGF-1 (PDB: 1BQT) and the telomere structure (PDB: 1ELN). In addition, the PI3KC domain of the ATM protein and the p53 promoter are also displayed. The main GenAge page has an image of a human with a DNA shadow that was obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy Genome Programs as well as a composite image using pictures from the GenAge section on model organisms. The picture of C. elegans is used with permission from the copyright holders Juergen Berger and Ralf Sommer, Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, Germany. The picture of a fruit fly was taken by André Karwath and the picture of S. cerevisiae was taken by Maxim Zakhartsev and Doris Petroi, International University Bremen, Germany.

The software section employs a variety of data to generate its image, including the WRN putative TFBS generated by the TF module, code from various applications such as ClustalW and the Profiles module, and output from the Profiles and the Info modules. In the main page of the software section, the menus also employ a camel image from O'Reilly and a mortality curve made with the sample data from the demographic analysis. The species section simply uses more images of mammals from Alan Carr's fonts. The figure in the evolution section displays a vertebrate alignment of MTCO1 and a primate alignment of the whole mitochondrial genome. Lastly, the figure in the delta projects uses DNA microarray images.

It is impossible for us to keep up with our databases and tools by ourselves. We need help from other researchers. Comments, suggestions, ideas, and bug reports are welcome. Besides, we are always looking for more curators to help in our efforts. Please contact us:

João Pedro de Magalhães
Harvard Medical School
Dept. of Genetics, Room 238
Avenue Louis Pasteur, 77
Boston, MA 02115
USA

Phone: +1 617-432-6512
Fax: +1 617-432-6513
E-mail: joao#genetics.med.harvard.edu (# = @)