PLACE (http://www.dna.affrc.go.jp/htdocs/PLACE/) is a database of nucleotide sequence motifs found in plant cis-acting regulatory DNA elements. Motifs were extracted from previously published reports on genes in vascular plants. In addition to the motifs originally reported, their variations in other genes or in other plant species in later reports are also compiled. Documents for each motif in the PLACE database contains, in addition to a motif sequence, a brief definition and description of each motif, and relevant literature with PubMed ID numbers and GenBank accession numbers where available. Users can search their query sequences for cis-elements using the Signal Scan program at our web site. The results will be reported in one of the three forms. Clicking the PLACE accession numbers in the result report will open the pertinent motif document. Clicking the PubMed or GenBank accession number in the document will allow users to access to these databases, and to read the of the literature or the annotation in the DNA database. This report summarizes the present status of this database and available tools.