3BASE	Sequence Resources	3Wiki	3Mail

Welcome to 3BASE, the Online Resource for Type III Secretion

3BASE has been created by Chris Bailey and Mark Pallen, to serve the Type III Secretion research community. By creating 3BASE—a comprehensive database of all type-III secretion systems—we aim to allow researchers to:

• master and interpret the nomenclature and conceptual framework associated with TTSSs other than the one they work on.
• locate visualise and manipulate regulatory, structural, interaction and sequence-analysis data for all TTSSs.
• follow the evidence trail for every functional assignment back to the original literature and/or on-line data.
• perform rapid, user-friendly comparisons between different systems.
• form an on-line community and market place of ideas that will help all participants gain novel insights, through dialogue and discussion, into type-III secretion.

Also, by facilitating systematic analysis of sequence data from TTSS-containing bacteria, we hope 3Base will deliver novel insights into type-III secretion and prime laboratory based work.

Currently in preliminary form, it already encompasses a successful mailing list (3Mail), an on-line encyclopaedia (3Wiki) dedicated to type-III secretion and some useful sequence resources for comparing gene clusters and preparing figures for publication. We hope in the near future to include a database similar to coliBASE, which will contain genomic, sequence and strcutural data from all type-III secretion systems.

If you wish to contribute to or learn more about 3BASE, please contact Mark Pallen or Chris Bailey.