BYTE-SEA

The field of genomics has undergone a major revolution over the past 20 years, providing new insights into the biological and biochemical diversity of life. The declining cost of DNA sequencing has enabled the launch of ambitious new analysis programs and the discovery of new biological species. In the field of marine science, exploring diversity represents a major challenge, as only about 10% of marine species are known and only about 100 high-quality genomes of marine organisms have been made available to the scientific community.

The ATLASea programme, structured around three projects (DIVE-Sea, SEQ-Sea, BYTE-Sea), aims to decipher and exploit the vast wealth of information available on marine species found along the French coastline. 4,500 marine species, with extensive coverage of species from mainland France but also including species from overseas territories, are sampled by the Targeted Project (PC1) DIVE-SEA. The samples are then entrusted to the teams of the Targeted Project (TP2) SEQ-SEA to produce genome assemblies associated with high-quality structural annotations.
Finally, the Targeted Project (TP3) BYTE-SEA, led by the French Institute of Bioinformatics, aims to centralise all the genomic data produced by the ATLASea project in a single portal and to integrate the genomes of related organisms sequenced by other consortia. It will ensure data interoperability and security, and facilitate their dissemination and use in accordance with FAIR and Open Science principles.

The environment developed by the BYTE-Sea project will thus provide access to genome sequencing data for marine organisms. The data made available will include information on genomic sequences, genes, coding and non-coding regions. The portal will also offer tools for sequence searching, genome analysis, genome comparison and data visualisation. It will enable progress on the project to be monitored and will provide a management tool for consortium members and a monitoring tool for the community.