1. Community Curation of Gene Descriptions Ranjana Kishore WormBase@Caltech Pasadena, California

2. Gene concise descriptions are snapshots of gene function Key data: orthology, process, molecular function, tissue and sub- cellular expression data (all from published papers).

3. Help us with writing and updating gene descriptions Use our community curation system and participate in writing gene descriptions! Writing and updating gene descriptions are labor-intensive and time-consuming

4. How can you help with WormBase Gene descriptions? -Write a new gene description (eg. for a newly published* gene). -Update an old gene description with new published* data. -Refine/Update our automated descriptions written by scripts (based on orthology and gene ontology (GO) data previously curated in WormBase). Example of an automated description: “hmg-1.2 is an ortholog of human HMGB2 (high mobility group box 2), HMGB1 (high mobility group box 1), HMGB3 (high mobility group box 3) and HMGB4 (high mobility group box 4); hmg-1.2 is involved in cell fate specification, Wnt signaling pathway, vulval development, positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter and hermaphrodite genitalia development; hmg-1.2 exhibits transcription regulatory region DNA binding activity; hmg-1.2 is localized to the nucleus”. *No meeting abstracts or Worm Breeder Gazette articles please

5. Using the Gene Description Submission Form Step 1: Enter your name and e-mail address Follow the links from here to this form

6. Step 2: Pick a gene and write a new description (if none) or edit the existing gene description

7. Step 3: Enter references for the gene description and then Preview and Submit You just contributed a gene description!

8. Acknowledgements Juancarlos Chan (Developing the form and software) James Done (Automated descriptions project) WormBase people at Caltech (For everything else!)