News & Events

New Datasets - Mouse RNA-Seq and Spry1 microCT images and landmarking protocols (09 August 2017)

FaceBase has just added a new dataset of RNA-Seq for Mouse from the RNA Dynamics of the Developing Mouse Face project: Temporal analysis of ectoderm and mesenchyme expression in the developing mouse facial prominences

We also added microCT images and landmarking protocols regarding Spry1 from the Inbred Background Genetic Effects on Craniofacial Dysmorphology project: Sprouty Background Effect. Here is the full description of this data:

Inbred genetic background significantly influences the expression of phenotypes associated with known genetic perturbations and can underlie variation in disease severity between individuals with the same mutation. However, the effect of epistatic interactions on the development of complex traits, such as craniofacial morphology, is poorly understood. We use the morphometric landmarks associated with a previous FaceBase analysis (Genetic Determinants of Orofacial Shape and Relationship to Cleft Lip/Palate) to 1) quantify the effect of three Sprouty null mutations on craniofacial shape and 2) to quantify how the associated dysmorphology is modulated by three inbred backgrounds. While it is commonly known that a given mutation may have different phenotypic effects across mouse backgrounds, our quantitative results represent an important first step towards elucidating genetic interactions underlying variation in robustness to known genetic perturbations in mice. Taking background effects into account will be necessary to identify genetic and developmental interactions that modulate the severity of craniofacial dysmorphology, because variation in the penetrance or severity of a disease mutation among humans is almost certainly based on similar interactions. In addition, identical micro-CT image and landmarking protocols make this a valuable comparative dataset to the Collaborative Cross mouse dataset of adult mouse morphology already found on FaceBase (see them listed on the Genetic Determinants of Orofacial Shape and Relationship to Cleft Lip/Palate project page).

Presentations from the 2017 FaceBase Annual Meeting in Boston (12 May 2017)

Our thanks go out to Dr. Richard Maas, Victoria Perroni and all of the people at Harvard Medical School for being wonderful hosts for our recent Annual Meeting. Our first day was again open to the public and attended onsite as well as via webcast. We thank you all for joining us.

For those who weren’t able to make it, we’ve posted presentations and videos from May 1st that have been approved for public viewing.

• Updated FaceBase Agenda with the speaker names for each presentation (thanks for the suggestion, remote attendee Robert Cornell!)

• Slides from that day are available on our Presentations page here.

• View videos of the presentations on our YouTube playlist.

The next Annual Meeting will be in Los Angeles on May 15th and 16th. To keep informed, please consider signing our mailing list here.

Updated 'curated' datasets (13 March 2017)

Updated data models

The FaceBase Hub has made a major upgrade of the underlying database schema for the Data Browser. What this means to users is that moving forward, our new data will provide far more details to help you discover data in new ways. Note that as a result, the URL schema of data records has changed and older bookmarks to datasets will no longer work.

Updated processing

The new data model requires more extensive curation of the data. To accelerate access of data to the community, we will provide access to minimally curated data sets as soon as we can after they’re submitted.

Then, after a round of careful curation, we will update the datasets on the website and change their status to ‘Curated’.

Newly curated datasets

Our first set of finely curated datasets are the ones we released last month.

• Transgenic Mouse Enhancer OPT Assays - ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and transgenic assays to identify non-coding regulatory elements (enhancers) active during craniofacial development from the Genomic and Transgenic Resources for Craniofacial Enhancer Studies project.

• Alk5 Control – Bone and Soft Tissue microCT images (from E16.5 to P0) from the Integrated research of functional genomics and craniofacial morphogenesis project

• Wild Type E18.5 Frontal Suture Images from the Transcriptome Atlases of the Craniofacial Sutures project.

2017 FaceBase Annual Meeting in Boston May 1-2 (03 March 2017)

The next annual meeting of the FaceBase Consortium will be held May 1-2 in Boston, MA. We are pleased to announce that once again, the first day of the meeting – Monday, May 1st – will be open to the general craniofacial research community and will be webcast.

During this day-long meeting, each FaceBase project will introduce themselves and describe their progress during the past year for FaceBase 2.

You can view the event page with details including how to register to attend the public portion here: 2017 FaceBase Annual Meeting.

(If you are a member of the FaceBase consortium, please contact help@facebase.org if you need help with internal registration/information.)

To attend the public portion of the meeting, please click this link to register.

Almost 30 New Datasets Released (02 February 2017)

We’re kicking off 2017 with some more new datasets from FaceBase 2 projects as well as integration of gene summary information within datasets.

New Datasets

We are pleased to offer 27 new datasets from FaceBase2 projects providing new microCT images and genomic data:

• Transgenic Mouse Enhancer OPT Assays - ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and transgenic assays to identify non-coding regulatory elements (enhancers) active during craniofacial development from the Genomic and Transgenic Resources for Craniofacial Enhancer Studies project.

• Alk5 Control – Bone and Soft Tissue microCT images (from E16.5 to P0) from the Integrated research of functional genomics and craniofacial morphogenesis project

• Wild Type E18.5 Frontal Suture Images from the Transcriptome Atlases of the Craniofacial Sutures project.

New Gene Summary integration

Where available, we have integrated gene summary information with the Data Browser. You can see our currently available summaries here. On details pages for a dataset where there is a gene summary available, a “Gene Summary” field appears with a link to the information.

Updated website navigation

We have tweaked the website navigation so that the first item, “Data Browser”, now offers the same search links displayed on the homepage, as well as links to the Gene Summary records available and a list of the new and pending datasets that have been or will soon be released. Links that used to be under “Data” but that were not part of the Data Browser have been moved under “Resources”.

If you have any questions or issues, please email help@facebase.org.