EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database in 2006.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl) at the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, UK, offers a large and freely accessible collection of nucleotide sequences and accompanying annotation. The database is maintained in collaboration with DDBJ and GenBank. Data are exchanged between the collaborating databases on a daily basis to achieve optimal synchrony. Webin is the preferred tool for individual submissions of nucleotide sequences, including Third Party Annotation, alignments and bulk data. Automated procedures are provided for submissions from large-scale sequencing projects and data from the European Patent Office. In 2006, the volume of data has continued to grow exponentially. Access to the data is provided via SRS, ftp and variety of other methods. Extensive external and internal cross-references enable users to search for related information across other databases and within the database. All available resources can be accessed via the EBI home page at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/. Changes over the past year include changes to the file format, further development of the EMBLCDS dataset and developments to the XML format.

EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database: developments in 2005.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (www.ebi.ac.uk/embl) at the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, UK, offers a comprehensive set of publicly available nucleotide sequence and annotation, freely accessible to all. Maintained in collaboration with partners DDBJ and GenBank, coverage includes whole genome sequencing project data, directly submitted sequence, sequence recorded in support of patent applications and much more. The database continues to offer submission tools, data retrieval facilities and user support. In 2005, the volume of data offered has continued to grow exponentially. In addition to the newly presented data, the database encompasses a range of new data types generated by novel technologies, offers enhanced presentation and searchability of the data and has greater integration with other data resources offered at the EBI and elsewhere. In stride with these developing data types, the database has continued to develop submission and retrieval tools to maximise the information content of submitted data and to offer the simplest possible submission routes for data producers. New developments, the submission process, data retrieval and access to support are presented in this paper, along with links to sources of further information.

Integr8 and Genome Reviews: integrated views of complete genomes and proteomes.

Integr8 is a new web portal for exploring the biology of organisms with completely deciphered genomes. For over 190 species, Integr8 provides access to general information, recent publications, and a detailed statistical overview of the genome and proteome of the organism. The preparation of this analysis is supported through Genome Reviews, a new database of bacterial and archaeal DNA sequences in which annotation has been upgraded (compared to the original submission) through the integration of data from many sources, including the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database, the UniProt Knowledgebase, InterPro, CluSTr, GOA and HOGENOM. Integr8 also allows the users to customize their own interactive analysis, and to download both customized and prepared datasets for their own use. Integr8 is available at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/integr8.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl), maintained at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) near Cambridge, UK, is a comprehensive collection of nucleotide sequences and annotation from available public sources. The database is part of an international collaboration with DDBJ (Japan) and GenBank (USA). Data are exchanged daily between the collaborating institutes to achieve swift synchrony. Webin is the preferred tool for individual submissions of nucleotide sequences, including Third Party Annotation (TPA) and alignments. Automated procedures are provided for submissions from large-scale sequencing projects and data from the European Patent Office. New and updated data records are distributed daily and the whole EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database is released four times a year. Access to the sequence data is provided via ftp and several WWW interfaces. With the web-based Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) it is also possible to link nucleotide data to other specialist molecular biology databases maintained at the EBI. Other tools are available for sequence similarity searching (e.g. FASTA and BLAST). Changes over the past year include the removal of the sequence length limit, the launch of the EMBLCDSs dataset, extension of the Sequence Version Archive functionality and the revision of quality rules for TPA data.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database.

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl/), maintained at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), incorporates, organizes and distributes nucleotide sequences from public sources. The database is a part of an international collaboration with DDBJ (Japan) and GenBank (USA). Data are exchanged between the collaborating databases on a daily basis to achieve optimal synchrony. The web-based tool, Webin, is the preferred system for individual submission of nucleotide sequences, including Third Party Annotation (TPA) and alignment data. Automatic submission procedures are used for submission of data from large-scale genome sequencing centres and from the European Patent Office. Database releases are produced quarterly. The latest data collection can be accessed via FTP, email and WWW interfaces. The EBI's Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) integrates and links the main nucleotide and protein databases as well as many other specialist molecular biology databases. For sequence similarity searching, a variety of tools (e.g. FASTA and BLAST) are available that allow external users to compare their own sequences against the data in the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database, the complete genomic component subsection of the database, the WGS data sets and other databases. All available resources can be accessed via the EBI home page at http://www.ebi.ac.uk.

Public services from the European Bioinformatics Institute.

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) provides numerous free-of-charge, publicly available bioinformatics services that can be divided into the following categories: ftp downloads; data submissions processing and biological database production; access to query; analysis and retrieval systems and tools; user support; training and education and industry support through EBI's SME program. These services are all available at the website. It is imperative that EBI's data as well as the tools to analyse it efficiently are made available in a free and unambiguous way to the scientific community. An important part of the EBI's mission is to make this happen in a fast, reliable and efficient manner. This paper serves as a brief introduction to each of these services.