Accessing data from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium: state of the art and future plans

The International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC) ( http://www.mousephenotype.org ) will reveal the pleiotropic functions of every gene in the mouse genome and uncover the wider role of genetic loci within diverse biological systems. Comprehensive informatics solutions are vital to ensuring that this vast array of data is captured in a standardised manner and made accessible to the scientific community for interrogation and analysis. Here we review the existing EuroPhenome and WTSI phenotype informatics systems and the IKMC portal, and present plans for extending these systems and lessons learned to the development of a robust IMPC informatics infrastructure.