BMC Genomics 2009, 10(Suppl 3):S7 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/10/S3/S7 Figure 2 An example of database tables: Experimental stage tables. 4. Status table. In the whole experimental flow, mice and Inserts are the key threads. All steps of the experiments are carried out around them and the current status of an Insert is critical to the workflow. The Status table is designed to record the current experimental stage and the status of each Insert in this stage. This strategy smoothens the experimental flow and creates a more efficient query of the stages and statuses. The Model-View-Controller pattern The three-layer architectural pattern Model-View-Con- troller (MVC) http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver/1979/mvc-2/ 1979-12-MVC.pdf is the choice for the system design in MP-PBmice. The MVC pattern is widely used in software engineering and often used by applications that deal with multiple views of the same data. The basic idea of this mainstream design pattern is to isolate the business logic from user interface considerations. This results in an application that modifies the visual appearance or the underlying business rules in such a way that they will not affect each other (see Figure 3). In MVC, the Model layer stores the data or information on which the application operates, provides application- specific methods to manage the data, and operates all of Page 5 of 13 (page number not for citation purposes)