The UK MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh is developing a digital atlas of mouse development and database to be a resource for spatially mapped data such as in situ gene expression and cell lineage. The project is in collaboration with the Section of Biomedical Sciences within the Division of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. This research programme is the Edinburgh Mouse Atlas Project (emap) The gene expression database (emage) is being developed as part of the Mouse Gene Expression Information Resource (MGEIR) in collaboration with the Jackson Laboratory, USA.

The emap Atlas is a digital Atlas of mouse embryonic development. It is based on the definitive books of mouse embryonic development by Theiler (1989) and Kaufman (1992) yet extends these studies by creating a series of interactive three-dimensional computer models of mouse embryos at successive stages of development with defined anatomical domains linked to a stage-by-stage ontology of anatomical names.

The three components of the spatial framework are the 3D models (3D grey-level voxel images) of the underlying histology, a standard mouse anatomical nomenclature (MAN) and a set of spatial regions or domains defined within the 3D models which link the geometric space of the 3D images with the textual description of the same space given by the nomenclature. These three parts form the Edinburgh Mouse Atlas and are maintained as an online database as well as a series of CD-ROMs.

The atlas form the spatio-temporal framework for an image-mapped gene-expression database emage. The database is now ready for public access and submission. See the emage pages for more details. emage is complemetary to the text-based gene-expression database (GXD) at the Jackson Lab. The nomenclature is shared and the two database are interoperable.

This page is under active development. For an earlier overview of the project please see the project outline.