Bacterial Isolate Genome Sequence Database (BIGSdb)
Written by Keith Jolley, © 2010-2012 University of Oxford
Jolley & Maiden 2010, BMC Bioinformatics 11:595
BIGSdb is software designed to store and analyse sequence data for bacterial isolates. Any number of sequences can be linked to isolate records - these can be small contigs assembled from dideoxy sequencing through to whole genomes (complete or multiple contigs generated from parallel sequencing technologies such as 454 or Illumina Solexa).
BIGSdb extends the principle of MLST to genomic data, where large numbers of loci can be defined, with alleles assigned by reference to sequence definition databases (which can also be set up with BIGSdb). Loci can also be grouped into schemes so that types can be defined by combinations of allelic profiles, a concept analagous to MLST.
All the functionality of mlstdbnet and agdbnet will be incorporated into BIGSdb and this software will be used to eventually host all the databases on this site. It is currently being used to host the Neisseria and Campylobacter sites.
The software has been released under the GNU General Public Licence version 3.