Overview:
DbGel was designed to assist research biologists in the analysis, storage and retrieval of protein gels. DbGel is easy to use yet offers the most sophisticated gel querying tools available. DbGel leverages OLE dB, Microsoft’s newest and most powerful database technology and can handle tens of thousands of gels. DbGel was written in Java and can be configured to function as an Internet Web Server. Thus, DbGel can easily be configured to serve an individual researcher or an entire research laboratory.
DbGel is easy to use. The user interface is extremely intuitive. The paradigm for storing and retrieving gels is simple and logical. There is no need for gel groups, masks and masters. New users quickly feel comfortable with DbGel.
DbGel offers a powerful assortment of querying tools including image query, lane query, protein query and SQL query. This allows the user to quickly retrieve the stored gels they want.
DbGel is the only product on the market to offer image query. Image query allows the researcher to retrieve gels that are visually similar to a "query" gel. The query gel can be an entire gel or a region of interest within a gel. DbGel automatically warps images and corrects for differing ranges and anomalous scaling among gels in the database.
DbGel generates 2D Gel reports, which include spot-protein tables, and corresponding labeled images. These reports can be published to the web or Microsoft Excel. Finally, DbGel contains a powerful 2D Gel comparison tool that publishes a comprehensive HTML report indicating protein spots that are unique to each gel.
Features:
Query by image
DbGel permits searching for gels by image characteristics. In this mode, an entire 2d Gel or a region of interest is the query. DbGel, compares the image characteristics of the query gel to image characteristics of gels in the database. Comparisons are made using optimized cross-entropy metrics. The result set contains the n-gels most similar to the query. Query by protein spots
DbGel will permits querying the database by protein spots. DbGel will retrieve gels containing the specified proteins. Advanced warping technologies are used to account for experimental variations. DbGel uses warping technologies to auto-detect protein spots on calibrated gels. Query by lane
DbGel handles 1d gels as well as 2d gels. The user can present a lane to the database. The database will return gels containing similar lanes. In order to account for experimental variation, lanes are normalized for pixels per inch, field strength, duration of field exposure and background. DbGel permits searching the database by entire lane or by a section of a lane. As with 2d gel queries, comparisons are made using optimized cross-entropy metrics. Intuitive 2-d gel calibration
An intuitive user interface permits calibration of gels by identifying protein spots or gel calibration markers. Calibration allows gels of varying pH and Kd ranges to be accurately compared. In addition, calibration assists DbGel in auto-detecting proteins on new gels. Advanced image warping
Image warping is critical for accurate gel querying and automatic detection of proteins. Gels are warped along the pH axis using bi-cubic splines. Gels are warped along the Kd axis using a combination of bi-cubic splines and least squares fitting. Images are warped before their features are extracted and stored in the database. Protein Spot Report Generation
DbGel generates sophisticated 2D Gel reports that can be viewed in Internet Browsers Microsoft Excel. These reports include automatically generated protein-spot tables and corresponding labeled images.
Contact dbgel@hotmail.com for a free evaluation copy.
For a more detailed description of DbGel download dbgelbrochure.pdf.