TaoChongBao: A Large-Scale Caenorhabditis elegans Mutagenesis and Missense Variant Database Bridging Worm and Human Genomes

Abstract

We generated and sequenced 12,069 viable Caenorhabditis elegans strains produced by ethyl methanesulfonate mutagenesis, identifying 20,315,536 variants, including 541,102 unique missense mutations across 20,914 genes. To organize and visualize this resource, we developed TaoChongBao, an open-access database and strain repository that integrates C. elegans mutation data with AlphaMissense-predicted pathogenicity scores and ClinVar clinical annotations. TaoChongBao enables users to explore worm missense variants, identify conserved residues corresponding to human pathogenic sites, and access viable strains for experimental validation. Compared with the previous Million Mutation Project in C. elegans, TaoChongBao expands mutation coverage over twenty-fold and emphasizes amino acid-altering variants. This resource provides a scalable platform for functional residuomics, variant interpretation, and comparative analyses between C. elegans and human genomes.