Global Catalogue of Microorganisms (GCM) is a comprehensive database of microbial resources. The database is a compilation of individual strain’s information — such as nucleotide and protein sequences, genome sequence and references citing a particular strain — automatically extracted from various sources, including Genbank, Pubmed, and SwissProt, using a specially-designed tools. This system is designed to assist culture collections to manage, disseminate and share the information related to their holdings. It also provides a uniform web-based interface for the scientific and industrial communities to access the comprehensive microbial resource information and thus promote the use of microbial resources in various industries.
GCM is an initiative of WFCC World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM), a data centre of The Word Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC). BIOTEC took part in this project as one of the active members of WFCC by contributing its catalogue information, which is also available at www.biotec.or.th/bcc, to GCM. BIOTEC researcher was among representatives from selected culture collections participating in the design of the database.
GCM currently contains information of close to 300,000 strains from 56 collections in 28 countries and regions. The database can be accessed at http://gcm.wfcc.info/.
Source: BIOTEC’s contribution to the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms
