=head1 About GFF files

The .gff and .fasta files located in the files download area of the
GMOD web site correspond to feature and dna information for the model
organism systems drosophila, C. elegans, and yeast.  They are
designed to be loaded into the Generic Genome Browser (GBrowse) for
browsing.  You can think of them as a starter's kit for your own
genome browser. 

These files are *not* necessarily kept up to date, but are imported
from the model organism databases at irregular intervals.  You are
strongly advised to generate your own versions of these files if you
want the most current data.

To assist in updating, the GBrowse distribution comes with several
scripts for converting the data downloaded from the model organism
databases into .gff format.  These are:

  process_wormbase.pl	   Import C. elegans annotations from WormBase
  process_sgd.pl           Import S. cerevisiae annotations from SGD
  process_gadfly.pl        Import D. melanogaster annotations from Flybase

Here is a brief description of the process for importing these files:

=over

=item 1. WormBase

The GFF files distributed at WormBase are actually useable as is.  The
process_wormbase.pl script adds some useful information to the GFF
files, most notably the positions of genetically mapped genes.
However you will need the Ace module (available at
http://www.cpan.org) to use it.

=over

=item a)

Go to ftp://www.wormbase.org/pub/wormbase/GENE_DUMPS/ and download
the CHROMOSOME_?.gff.gz files that you find there.  Put them all into
one local directory named "wormbase_orig".

=item b)

While you're there, go to ftp://www.wormbase.org/pub/wormbase/DNA_DUMPS/unpacked
and download the six CHROMOSOME_?.fa files that you find there.  Put them
into wormbase_orig too.

=item c)

Create a new directory called wormbase_new".

=item d)

Convert the WormBase GFF files into gbrowse GFF files:

	process_wormbase.pl wormbase_orig > wormbase_new/wormbase.gff

=item e)

Copy the DNA files to wormbase_new

	mv wormbase_orig/*.fa wormbase_new

=item f)

Load everything -- see gbrowse instructions for how this works.

        fast_load_gff.pl -d elegans -f wormbase_new wormbase_new/wormbase.gff

=back

=item 2. FlyBase

The FlyBase files are maintained in a Berkeley database called GadFly.
They must be processed before they can be used in gbrowse.

=over

=item a)

Go to ftp://ftp.fruitfly.org/pub/genomic/gadfly/ and
download the files named RELEASEXXgff.2L.tar.gz,
RELEASEXXgff.3L.tar.gz and so on, where XX corresponds to the
latest release.  These are annotation files.

=item b)

Go to ftp://ftp.fruitfly.org/pub/genomic/fasta/
and get the file na_arms.dros.RELEASEXX.Z.  This contains
the sequence in FASTA format.  Make sure to use the same 
release number as the annotation files!

=item c)

Unpack the annotation files to yield a directory named after the release,
e.g. RELEASE2, containing a directory named after the chromosome
arm.  Do this repeatedly in order to create a directory that
contains each of the chromosome arms, i.e.:

     RELEASE2/gff/X
     RELEASE2/gff/2L
     RELEASE2/gff/2R

=item d)

Run the process_gadfly.pl script to convert into gbrowse GFF format:

  process_gadfly.pl ./RELEASE2 > fly.gff

=item e)

Run the following script to put the fly FASTA files into a loadable
format:

   uncompress -c na_arms.dros.RELEASEXX.Z  | \
        perl -pe 's/^>Chromosome_arm_(S+)/>/' > fly.fa

=item f)

Run the GFF loader

  fast_load_gff.pl -d fly -f fly.fa fly.gff

=back

=item 3. SGD (yeast)

=over

=item a)

Go to ftp://genome-ftp.stanford.edu/pub/yeast/data_download/chromosomal_feature/
and download the files chromosomal_feature.tab.

=item b)

Go to ftp://genome-ftp.stanford.edu/pub/yeast/data_download/sequence/genomic_sequence/chromosomes/fasta
and download all the .fsa files.

=item c)

Run the process_sgd.pl script to create a loadable GFF file.

   process_sgd.pl chromosomal_features.tab > yeast.gff

=item d)

Run the following script to put the FASTA files into a loadable format:

   perl -pe 's/>.+chromosome=(\w+)/>$1//' *.fsa > yeast.fa

=item e)

Run the GFF loader

  fast_load_gff.pl -d yeast -f yeast.fa yeast.gff

=back

=back

=head1 IMPORTANT NOTE:

File formats and paths change all the time.  These recipes worked as
of 11/07/02, but are not guaranteed for the future!