This has motivated us to work on improving our evidence codes to facilitate their use as gold standards. More recently, we have also gathered knowledge generated by genomic high throughput (HT) methodologies as can be appreciated in the latest RegulonDB version 11.0, where, in addition to the objects and interactions identified by methods of molecular biology, users can find datasets of binding sites from ChIP-seq, ChIP-exo, gSELEX and DAP-seq HT technologies.

Fortunately, in the case of Escherichia coli K-12, the best studied microorganism, we have been continuously gathering this knowledge from original scientific publications for the last 30 years, and have made it available to the public in two databases, RegulonDB and EcoCyc. Such previous knowledge is dispersed in the scientific literature, limiting their accessibility. As new methodologies emerge, a natural step is to compare their results with available knowledge obtained by previously established methodologies, such as the classic methods of molecular biology used to characterize transcription factor binding and regulatory sites, promoters, and transcription units. Genomics has strongly increased the available experimental strategies to identify the elements involved in regulatory networks, particularly those of the regulation of transcription initiation.

Author of the golden notebook