UniGene Dynamic Local Storage Tool

v. 1.0  Ron Hart rhart@bioinformatics.org

UniGene DLST is a simple PHP/Apache/MySQL application that downloads and
maintains local copies of UniGene genome tables.  The default web site displays
a list of genomes available in UniGene along with their most recent build number
and date.  If a genome has been downloaded, the build number and download date
are also displayed.

When a user selects a genome, the gzipped data file is stored locally in a
temporary file.  The  file is parsed into three linked MySQL tables.  One table
(data) contains one row for each UniGene cluster.  A second table (sequence)
contains one row for each GenBank Accession key in each cluster.  The third
table (express) stores gene expression data associated with each cluster.
Once the downloaded flat file is parsed, the file is deleted.

Downloaded UniGene tables are useful for annotating microarrays or for comparing
different microarrays from the same species through shared UniGene cluster numbers.

Comments:

1.	At this stage there is no administrative security--any user may download
genomes.  This will be changed in a future release.

2.	The OS user that is used by Apache must have write access to a folder
for downloading files.

3.	Installation assumes that you have a server configured with Apache, PHP
4.X and MySQL.

4.	The downloaded UniGene tables will attempt to link to existing microarray tables 
that I have not included.  You will need to edit these regions of code to suit your
needs.

5.	A stand-alone file, refresh_genome_table.php, is included for running as
a cron job.  I normally schedule this script to run each night.  It checks for updated 
genomes (among those selected in the web status page) and queues an automated update. 
Genome updates are currently limited to one per night.  On my hardware (a Mac XServe), 
the human genome takes about 8-10 hours to parse.

Installation:

1.	Download and uncompress the archive.  Move it to a folder in the path of
your web site.  On MacOSX this is usually /Library/WebServer/Documents.  On
Linux this is usually /usr/local/www.

2.	If necessary, modify your httpd.conf file to establish the chosen
location as a directory.

3.	Check that the "files" directory has write permission for the Apache
username.  The simplest and least secure method is to "chmod 777 files".

4.	Edit the unigene.class.inc file in the include folder.  Class members
(variables) that will require local editting are at the top of the file with
commented instructions.  Insert your email address, local MySQL server data, and
full address of the local directory for writing files.

5.	Edit the value of $working_dir in index.php and refresh_genome_table.php to 
match your installation.

6.	Point a web browser to index.php.