The Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) is a genome browsing and annotation system developed by the DOE-Joint Genome Institute. IMG contains all the draft and complete microbial genomes sequenced by the DOE-JGI integrated with other publicly available genomes (including Archaea, Bacteria, Eukarya, Viruses and Plasmids). IMG provides a set of tools for comparative analysis of genes, genomes and functions.

Users can employee a set of powerful tools for comparative analysis and explore the microbial genomes along its 3 main dimensions (genomes, genes and functions), select them and transfer them in the comparative analysis carts.

Users can also type or upload their own gene annotations (called MyIMG gene annotations) and the IMG system will allow them to generate Genbank or EMBL format files containing these annotations.

For a tutorial on on how to use the system visit OpenHelix

The Integrated Microbial Genomes with Microbiome Samples (IMG/M) system is an extension of the IMG system providing a comparative analysis context of metagenomic data with the publicly available isolate genomes.

The Integrated Microbial Genomes- Expert Review (IMG/ER) system provides support to individual scientists or group of scientists for functional annotation and curation of their microbial genomes of interest. Users can submit their annotated genomes (or request the IMG automated annotation pipeline to be applied first) into IMG-ER and proceed with manual curation and comparative analysis in the system, through secure (password protected) access.

External links and sources

• IMG home page reference: Nucleic Acids Research, 2006, Vol. 34, Database issue D344-D348
• IMG/M home page reference: Bioinformatics, 2006, Vol 22(14): e359-e367
• MicrobesOnline
• NCBI Microbial Genomes
• TIGR Comprehensive Microbial Resource
• The SEED