Different homologous gene family databases have been developed and are maintained at the PBIL (Pôle Bioinformatique Lyonnais). Historically, the first one was HOVERGEN, a collection of homologous genes from vertebrates. Since, we have developed HOBACGEN, devoted to prokaryotic organisms, NuReBase, for nuclear receptors in metazoans, and RTKdb, for tyrosine kinase receptors. What makes these databases especially useful is the fact that the gene sequences they contain are clustered into homologous families (or subfamilies in the case of NuReBase and RTKdb), and that we provide the corresponding multiple alignments and phylogenetic trees. Due to the peculiar nature of the information available in these systems, we have developed specific retrieval and handling tools allowing to browse the data and to select subsets of families.

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