Development of the Legume Information System is a joint venture between the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and the USDA-ARS at Iowa State University.
The comparative-legumes site was developed using the Ruby on Rails framework, and the LegumeInfo site is developed using the Tripal content management system.
A fundamental approach taken in LIS is facilitate research in the orphan species by taking advantage of more extensive knowledge developed for the reference species.
Use of synteny and local similarity, for instance, provides a basis for trait inference.
Note that LIS makes use of the UniProt organism mnemonics for identifying species whenever possible.