Ozone Stress Responsive Gene Database (OSRGD ver. 1.1): a literature curated database for crop improvement

Ozone (O3) is a major abiotic stress which severely affects the growth and development of plants. In order to cope up with ozone stress, plants exhibit a plethora of morphological, physiological and molecular changes. Various molecular studies have been performed and a variety of genes exhibiting expression in response to ozone stress have been identified. However, no existing database has been designed yet to present information on ozone stress responsive genes differentially expressed across different plant species. The lack of a curated database limits the research potential in the area and therefore a cohesive database should be designed as a data repository of the ozone responsive genes. OSRGD ver. 1.1 is a user friendly web interface to explore ozone stress specific transcriptome dataset of different plant species. It allows users to retrieve the ozone stress responsive gene data by keyword based search. Each entry upon keyword query contains detailed information about the specific species, its foliar injury symptoms, pattern of gene expression, and platform used for gene expression analysis with reference literature. This comprehensive biocuration will offer researchers a better biological insight into plants response to ozone stress which will focus on development of climate smart crops through crop breeding.