International sequence databases exceed 100 gigabases

In a recent press release, the INSDC announced the DNA sequence database has exceeded 100 gigabases. GenBank is proud of its contributions toward this milestone. We thank all the scientists who have worked through the submission process at GenBank and made their sequence data available to the world.

We look forward to working with you all in the future to continue this tradition as the database continues to grow exponentially.

What is GenBank?

GenBank^® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences ( Nucleic Acids Research 2005 January 13;33(Database Issue):D34-D36). There are approximately 51,674,486,881 bases in 46,947,388 sequence records in the traditional GenBank divisions and 53,346,605,784 bases in 10,276,161 sequence records in the WGS division as of August 2005. As an example, you may view the record for a Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene. The complete release notes for the current version of GenBank are available. A new release is made every two months. GenBank is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, which comprises the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and GenBank at NCBI. These three organizations exchange data on a daily basis.

Submissions to GenBank

Many journals require submission of sequence information to a database prior to publication so that an accession number may appear in the paper. The WWW-based submission tool, called BankIt, for convenient and quick submission of sequence data. Sequin, NCBI's stand-alone submission software for MAC, PC, and UNIX platforms, is available by FTP. When using Sequin, the output files for direct submission should be sent to GenBank by electronic mail.

Updating or Revising a Sequence

Revisions or updates to GenBank entries can be made at any time and can be accepted as BankIt or Sequin files or as the text of an e-mail message. Be sure to give the accession number of the sequence to be updated in the subject line. Send it to:

     gb-admin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 

Access to GenBank

GenBank is available for searching at NCBI via several methods.

GenBank nucleotide records are available in the divisions CoreNucleotide, dbEST, or dbGSS and can be searched in Entrez together or independently. They must be searched independently in BLAST, however. CoreNucleotide is further split into several BLAST databases, including nr, htgs, wgs and env_nt. See the BLAST info page for more information about the numerous BLAST databases.

The GenBank database is designed to provide and encourage access within the scientific community to the most up to date and comprehensive DNA sequence information. Therefore, NCBI places no restrictions on the use or distribution of the GenBank data. However, some submitters may claim patent, copyright, or other intellectual property rights in all or a portion of the data they have submitted. NCBI is not in a position to assess the validity of such claims, and therefore cannot provide comment or unrestricted permission concerning the use, copying, or distribution of the information contained in GenBank.

New Developments

NCBI is continuously developing new tools and enhancing existing ones to improve both submission and access to GenBank. The easiest way to keep abreast of these and other developments is to sign up on the NCBI Announce e-mail list, read the NCBI News, available via the web and free subscription, and check the "What's New" section of the NCBI Web page.

Revised: November 7, 2005.