Abstract:
ORCAE (Online Resource for Community Annotation of Eukaryotes) is a public genome
annotation curation resource. ORCAE-AOCC is a branch that is dedicated to the genomes published
as part of the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC). The motivation behind the development of
the ORCAE platform was to create a knowledge-based website where the research-community can
make contributions to improve genome annotations. All changes to any given gene-model or gene
description are stored, and the entire annotation history can be retrieved. Genomes can either be set
to “public” or “restricted” mode; anonymous users can browse public genomes but cannot make any
changes. Aside from providing a user- friendly interface to view genome annotations, the platform
also includes tools and information (such as gene expression evidence) that enables authorized users to
edit and validate genome annotations. The ORCAE-AOCC platform will enable various stakeholders
from around the world to coordinate their e orts to annotate and study underutilized crops.
