An enhanced version of the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data management system has been released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI). IMG 1.1, contains 32 new public genomes and 14 new genomes sequenced by DOE JGI, bringing the total of genomes in IMG to 337. These include 301 bacterial, 25 archaeal, and 11 eukaryotic genomes, of which 36 finished and 75 draft genomes were sequenced by DOE JGI.

The new IMG 1.1 features enhanced capabilities to improve the efficiency of the genome analysis process. To extend the utility of the organism and gene analysis tools, several new features have been added. These include a function to compare gene occurrence profiles across organisms, an enhanced support infrastructure for comparative organism statistics, and the ability to save and load organism and gene analysis settings from local user files. The documentation has been also expanded to ease the overall comprehensibility of IMG analysis.

IMG, accessible to the public at <http://img.jgi.doe.gov/>, is the result of a collaboration between the DOE JGI and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Biological Data Management and Technology Center (BDMTC). IMG continues to be updated on a quarterly basis with new public and DOE JGI genomes. The next update is scheduled for September 1, 2005.