AMBAB: A Bioinformatic system for the assistance of molecular breeding in asparagus bean (V. unguiculata ssp. sesquipedialis) and other plant species

AMBAB (http://60.191.1.10:7777/cowpea/) is a user-friendly web server system for genomic research and breeding of asparagus bean (V. unguiculata ssp. sesquipedialis). This system integrates multiple analytical tools including Blast, Sim 4, Primer 3 and e-PCR to enable an easy and effective use of the current genomic resources to assist breeding by geneticists, breeders and trained farmers. Presently, the reference genome sequences of Oryza sativa, Arabidopsis thaliana and the inhouse genome re-sequencing data of four asparagus bean accessions are available for blast search and e-PCR. Using this system, users can query an EST, unigene or genomic sequence of interest against the asparagus bean genome dataset, to retrieve the information of gene location, similarity, intron-exon junctions and more. PCR primers can subsequently be developed by using Primer 3 based on the retrieved genomic sequences. If the development of a polymorphic primer is required, e-PCR will be very useful in predicting the amplicon patterns of various primers. In addition, the AMBAB system is also valuable for general bioinformatic analyses for other plant species.