Crop Transport information, Physiology & Signalling Knowledgebase - CropTiPS Integration of crop transporter data Rakesh David1, Cornelia M Hooper2, Ian R Castleden2, Matthew Gilliham1, Stephen D Tyerman1 1ARC CoE in Plant Energy Biology, University of Adelaide, SA, Australia ; 2ARC CoE in Plant Energy Biology, University of Western Australia, WA, Australia Membrane transporters are ubiquitous proteins that play crucial roles in physiology, metabolism and signalling through their function in translocating ions and small molecules across biological membranes. In plants, approximately 10-20% of the coding sequences encode transport proteins and can be functionally classiﬁed into channels, carriers and pumps (Figure 1) (Saier and Ren, 2006). Membrane transporters are the focus of extensive research in crop species (Figure 2) due to their importance in protecting plants from environmental stresses. However, this data remains dispersed and unconnected, with only limited attempts made to integrate the vast amount of molecular, physiological and biophysical information available. Here, we address this issue with the development of a database that contains a comprehensive collection manually curated experimental data related to transport proteins in major crop species. 1. Key features of CropTiPS 2. Experimental data classiﬁcation 4. Conclusion The CropTiPS repository connects physiology and biophysics of transporter proteins from four important agronomic species into a single online resource. The resource is an important step in developing new strategies to manipulate transporter function to ultimately enhance crop yield and resistance to key stresses Saier. MH Jr., Ren Q. Journal of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology (2006) Taiz. L., and Zeiger. E. Plant Physiology 5th Ed (2010). Channel protein Carrier protein Pump 1971-1975 1976-1980 1981-1985 1986-1990 1991-1995 1996-2000 2001-2005 2006-2010 2011-2016 0 100 200 300 Rice Wheat Barley Maize Published transporter studies • Knowledgebase of membrane transporters and signalling systems in rice, wheat, barley and maize. • Source is published literature and reference transport proteins. • Searchable for experimental curated data/transport protein. Taiz and Zeiger (2010) Plant Phys Transporter Transport properties Physiology Signalling Expression proﬁle Number of publications Published experimental data related to a transporter is categorized into three functional groups - Transport, Physiology & Signalling and Expression proﬁle. Experimental approaches used to study these functions are stored in a MySQL database. Experimental data is linked to the current genome annotations through the Ensembl Plants identiﬁer system. CropTiPS is linked to the AgriConnect platform that aims to connect high value crop data collections across key Australian agricultural research institutions. 3. CropTiPS user interface Query page Results tabular view Transporter Factsheet Expression Proﬁle Tissue Localization Transport properties Yeast expression Xenopus oocyte Phenotype Transporter Protein Interaction Protein modiﬁcations Physiology and Signalling Natural Variation Other heterologous system 67 experimental parameters Ensembl Plants Identiﬁer linking CropTiPS user Interface & query builder http://www.croptips.org/ AgriConnect portal https://agriconnect.latrobe.edu.au/ Transporter information can be retrieved using the query builder: • Choice of four crop species. • Quick search of text or protein identiﬁers. • Experimental information organised under functional categories. The results table offers compact view of protein hits matching the query and a summary of curated experimental data: • Results table is organised based on protein identiﬁers and annotation for each species. • Summarised experimental data and PubMed links to the related articles are provided for each protein. • Columns can be customized to display additional features such as Arabidopsis homology, length, isoelectric point, molecula