Lipid pathway databases with a focus on algae

Pathways of lipid biosynthesis are highly complex and have been established in model organisms such as Arabidopsis thaliana and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, whereas in other organisms, we need bioinformatic tools to map individual enzymes onto reference pathways. In this chapter, we explain representative tools that are useful in identifying algal orthologs of lipid biosynthetic enzymes and finding new enzymes that are possibly involved in the pathway of interest. All descriptions in this chapter refer to in silico (i.e., computer-based) methods rather than laboratory experiments.