The large-scale sequencing of genomes and the increasing use of high throughput technologies have provided large amounts of data, and in so doing, transformed the acquisition of knowledge on thousands of microbial species.

Nonetheless and despite the development of powerful bioinformatics approaches, the complete interpretation of this genomic content remains difficult. The microbial genome annotation and analysis platform MicroScope was launched in 2002 within Genoscope's Laboratory of Bioinformatics Analyses for Genomics and Metabolism (LABGeM). It has been under continuous development since. MicroScope provides an array of tools for research on prokaryote genomes, metabolic pathways, post-genomics and more, with which its users can contribute to knowledge on gene function.

In a special edition of Nucleic Acids Research on databases, LABGeM presented the most recent developments at MicroScope.

User interface improvements for genome selection and to the genome browser and gene annotation editor were highlighted, as were the updates made for automated functional annotation and the addition of new tools for gene function annotations and genomic region characterization. The platform also proposes tools for comparative analyses on hundreds of genomes based on pan-genome graphs¹.

Currently, MicroScope houses data on more than 12,300 microbial genomes, a portion of which is conserved manually by microbiologists (more than 4,700 personal accounts as of January 2020). The platform enables collaborative work in a rich genomic context and contributes to the scientific community's efforts for the conservation and curation of data.

1 : The term pan-genome describes the entire set of genes in a species. It comprises thus all the genes from all of the strains within a species. Pan-genomes are of importance in an evolutionary context, particularly in metagenomics, but they are also useful in the larger context of general genomics.

LABGeM : Laboratory of Bioinformatics Analyses for Genomics and Metabolism