E. coli is indeed the coolest thing on the planet - Carl Zimmer

From EcoliWiki

Finding a particular gene or region

To direct Gbrowse to a particular region of the chromosome, type a gene name, a short sequence (minimum of 15 bp), or a nucleotide range in the Landmark or Region box located near the top left of the page and click on the Search button. See the image below.

Gbrowse will recognize a standard gene name as well as its synonyms. To find a b number, type Orf:bxxxx.

To find a nucleotide range, type: MG16655:xx..xx (where xx indicate the nucleotide positions).

Once you get to a particular location, you can use the Scroll/Zoom buttons to move along the chromosome or change magnification.

Information displayed in Gbrowse

The information in Gbrowse is displayed in tracks, as shown in the image below.

• Overview is a linear display of the entire genome with a vertical bar marking the location of the region being viewed.
• Region displays 50 kb on either side of the gene being viewed.
• The Details section displays more detailed information on genes in the region and contains multiple tracks. The user can set which of the tracks are shown. The image below has the tracks that show gene names (Genes), gene names and a brief description of gene product function (GenesDetail), Noncoding RNAs, and the known or predicted operons (operon_RegulonDB).

• The Genes track contains link to other databases. To see the links, move the cursor over the bar representing the gene.

• To set which tracks are shown, scroll to the Tracks display near the bottom of the page. Click the tracks you want displayed and click on the Update Image button. Each of the tracks has display options that can be set by clicking the Configure tracks button.

Displaying other genomes

The default entry point for this installation of Gbrowse is the E. coli K-12 MG1655 genome. However, it can display other genomes, including those of E. coli K-12 W3110, conjugative plasmids F and R100, and a number of bacteriophage. To access one of these other genomes, choose from the scroll down menu in the Data Source box.