The NCBI Handbook

GenBank: The Nucleotide Sequence Database

[Chapter 1]

Ilene Mizrachi

Summary
The GenBank sequence database is an annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide
sequences and their protein translations. This database is produced at National Center for
Biotechnology Information (NCBI) as part of an international collaboration with the European
The NCBI Handbook

Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Data Library from the European Bioinformatics Institute
(EBI) and the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ). GenBank and its collaborators receive sequences
produced in laboratories throughout the world from more than 100,000 distinct organisms. GenBank
continues to grow at an exponential rate, doubling every 10 months. Release 134, produced in
February 2003, contained over 29.3 billion nucleotide bases in more than 23.0 million sequences.
GenBank is built by direct submissions from individual laboratories, as well as from bulk submissions
from large-scale sequencing centers.
Direct submissions are made to GenBank using BankIt, which is a Web-based form, or the stand-
alone submission program, Sequin. Upon receipt of a sequence submission, the GenBank staff assigns
an Accession number to the sequence and performs quality assurance checks. The submissions are
then released to the public database, where the entries are retrievable by Entrez or downloadable by
FTP. Bulk submissions of Expressed Sequence Tag (EST), Sequence Tagged Site (STS), Genome
Survey Sequence (GSS), and High-Throughput Genome Sequence (HTGS) data are most often
submitted by large-scale sequencing centers. The GenBank direct submissions group also processes
complete microbial genome sequences.
The NCBI Handbook

History
Initially, GenBank was built and maintained at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In
the early 1990s, this responsibility was awarded to NCBI through congressional mandate.
NCBI undertook the task of scanning the literature for sequences and manually typing the
sequences into the database. Staff then added annotation to these records, based upon
information in the published article. Scanning sequences from the literature and placing them
into GenBank is now a rare occurrence. Nearly all of the sequences are now deposited directly
by the labs that generate the sequences. This is attributable to, in part, a requirement by most
journal publishers that nucleotide sequences are first deposited into publicly available
databases (DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank) so that the Accession number can be cited and the
sequence can be retrieved when the article is published. NCBI began accepting direct
submissions to GenBank in 1993 and received data from LANL until 1996. Currently, NCBI
receives and processes about 20,000 direct submission sequences per month, in addition to the
The NCBI Handbook

approximately 200,000 bulk submissions that are processed automatically.

International Collaboration
In the mid-1990s, the GenBank database became part of the International Nucleotide Sequence
Database Collaboration with the EMBL database (European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton,
United Kingdom) and the Genome Sequence Database (GSDB; LANL, Los Alamos, NM).
Subsequently, the GSDB was removed from the Collaboration (by the National Center for
Genome Resources, Santa Fe, NM), and DDBJ (Mishima, Japan) joined the group. Each
database has its own set of submission and retrieval tools, but the three databases exchange
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

data daily so that all three databases should contain the same set of sequences. Members of the
DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank staff meet annually to discuss technical issues, and an
international advisory board meets with the database staff to provide additional guidance. An
entry can only be updated by the database that initially prepared it to avoid conflicting data at
the three sites.

The Collaboration created a Feature Table Definition that outlines legal features and syntax
for the DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank feature tables. The purpose of this document is to
standardize annotation across the databases. The presentation and format of the data are
different in the three databases, however, the underlying biological information is the same.

Confidentiality of Data
When scientists submit data to GenBank, they have the opportunity to keep their data
confidential for a specified period of time. This helps to allay concerns that the availability of
The NCBI Handbook

their data in GenBank before publication may compromise their work. When the article
containing the citation of the sequence or its Accession number is published, the sequence
record is released. The database staff request that submitters notify GenBank of the date of
publication so that the sequence can be released without delay. The request to release should
be sent to [email protected].

Direct Submissions
The typical GenBank submission consists of a single, contiguous stretch of DNA or RNA
sequence with annotations. The annotations are meant to provide an adequate representation
of the biological information in the record. The GenBank Feature Table Definition describes
the various features and subsequent qualifiers agreed upon by the International Nucleotide
Sequence Database Collaboration.

Currently, only nucleotide sequences are accepted for direct submission to GenBank. These
include mRNA sequences with coding regions, fragments of genomic DNA with a single gene
The NCBI Handbook

or multiple genes, and ribosomal RNA gene clusters. If part of the nucleotide sequence encodes
a protein, a conceptual translation, called a CDS (coding sequence), is annotated. The span of
the CDS feature is mapped to the nucleotide sequence encoding the protein. A protein
Accession number (/protein_id) is assigned to the translation product, which will subsequently
be added to the protein databases.

Multiple sequences can be submitted together. Such batch submissions of non-related

sequences may be processed together but will be displayed in Entrez (Chapter 15) as single
records. Alternatively, by using the Sequin submission tool (Chapter 12), a submitter can
specify that several sequences are biologically related. Such sequences are classified as
environmental sample sets, population sets, phylogenetic sets, mutation sets, or segmented
sets. Each sequence within a set is assigned its own Accession number and can be viewed
independently in Entrez. However, with the exception of segmented sets, each set is also
indexed within the PopSet division of Entrez, thus allowing scientists to view the relationship
between the sequences.
The NCBI Handbook

What defines a set? Environmental sample, population, phylogenetic, and mutation sets all
contain a group of sequences that spans the same gene or region of the genome. Environmental
samples are derived from a group of unclassified or unknown organisms. A population set
contains sequences from different isolates of the same organism. A phylogenetic set contains
sequences from different organisms that are used to determine the phylogenetic relationship
between them. Sequencing multiple mutations within a single gene gives rise to a mutation set.

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

All sets, except segmented sets, may contain an alignment of the sequences within them and
might include external sequences already present in the database. In fact, the submitter can
begin with an existing alignment to create a submission to the database using the Sequin
submission tool. Currently, Sequin accepts FASTA+GAP, PHYLIP, MACAW, NEXUS
Interleaved, and NEXUS Contiguous alignments. Submitted alignments will be displayed in
the PopSet section of Entrez.

Segmented sets are a collection of noncontiguous sequences that cover a specified genetic
region. The most common example is a set of genomic sequences containing exons from a
single gene where part or all of the intervening regions have not been sequenced. Each member
record within the set contains the appropriate annotation, exon features in this case. However,
the mRNA and CDS will be annotated as joined features across the individual records.
Segmented sets themselves can be part of an environmental sample, population, phylogenetic,
or mutation set.
The NCBI Handbook

Bulk Submissions: High-Throughput Genomic Sequence (HTGS)

HTGS entries are submitted in bulk by genome centers, processed by an automated system,
and then released to GenBank. Currently, about 30 genome centers are submitting data for a
number of organisms, including human, mouse, rat, rice, and Plasmodium falciparum, the
malaria parasite.

HTGS data are submitted in four phases of completion: 0, 1, 2, and 3. Phase 0 sequences are
one-to-few reads of a single clone and are not usually assembled into contigs. They are low-
quality sequences that are often used to check whether another center is already sequencing a
particular clone. Phase 1 entries are assembled into contigs that are separated by sequence gaps,
the relative order and orientation of which are not known (Figure 1). Phase 2 entries are also
unfinished sequences that may or may not contain sequence gaps. If there are gaps, then the
contigs are in the correct order and orientation. Phase 3 sequences are of finished quality and
have no gaps. For each organism, the group overseeing the sequencing effort determines the
definition of finished quality.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Diagram showing the orientation and gaps that might be expected in high-throughput sequence
from phases 1, 2, and 3.

Phase 0, 1, and 2 records are in the HTG division of GenBank, whereas phase 3 entries go into
the taxonomic division of the organism, for example, PRI (primate) for human. An entry keeps
its Accession number as it progresses from one phase to another but receives a new
The NCBI Handbook

Accession.Version number and a new gi number each time there is a sequence change.

Submitting Data to the HTG Division

To submit sequences in bulk to the HTG processing system, a center or group must set up an
FTP account by writing to [email protected]. Submitters frequently use two tools
to create HTG submissions, Sequin or fa2htgs. Both of these tools require FASTA-formatted
sequence, i.e., a definition line beginning with a “greater than” sign (“>”) followed by a unique
identifier for the sequence. The raw sequence appears on the lines after the definition line. For
sequences composed of contigs separated by gaps, a modified FASTA format is used. In
addition, Sequin users must modify the Sequin configuration file so that the HTG genome
center features are enabled.

fa2htgs is a command-line program that is downloaded to the user's computer. The submitter
invokes a script with a series of parameters (arguments) to create a submission. It has an
advantage over Sequin in that it can be set up by the user to create submissions in bulk from
The NCBI Handbook

multiple files.

Submissions to HTG must contain three identifiers that are used to track each HTG record: the
genome center tag, the sequence name, and the Accession number. The genome center tag is
assigned by NCBI and is generally the FTP account login name. The sequence name is a unique
identifier that is assigned by the submitter to a particular clone or entry and must be unique
within the group's submissions. When a sequence is first submitted, it has only a sequence
name and genome center tag; the Accession number is assigned during processing. All updates
to that entry must include the center tag, sequence name, and Accession number, or processing
will fail.

The HTG Processing Pathway

Submitters deposit HTGS sequences in the form of Seq-submit files generated by Sequin,
fa2htgs, or their own ASN.1 dumper tool into the SEQSUBMIT directory of their FTP account.
Every morning, scripts automatically pick up the files from the FTP site and copy them to the
The NCBI Handbook

processing pathway, as well as to an archive. Once processing is complete and if there are no
errors in the submission, the files are automatically loaded into GenBank. The processing time
is related to the number of submissions that day; therefore, processing can take from one to
many hours.

Entries can fail HTG processing because of three types of problems:

1 Formatting: submissions are not in the proper Seq-submit format.

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

2 Identification: submissions may be missing the genome center tag, sequence name,
or Accession number, or this information is incorrect.
3 Data: submissions have problems with the data and therefore fail the validator checks.
When submissions fail HTG processing, a GenBank annotator sends email to the sequencing
center, describing the problem and asking the center to submit a corrected entry. Annotators
do not fix incorrect submissions; this ensures that the staff of the submitting genome center
fixes the problems in their database as well.

The processing pathway also generates reports. For successful submissions, two files are
generated: one contains the submission in GenBank flat file format (without the sequence);
and another is a status report file. The status report file, ac4htgs, contains the genome center,
sequence name, Accession number, phase, create date, and update date for the submission.
Submissions that fail processing receive an error file with a short description of the error(s)
that prevented processing. The GenBank annotator also sends email to the submitter, explaining
The NCBI Handbook

the errors in further detail.

Additional Quality Assurance

When successful submissions are loaded into GenBank, they undergo additional validation
checks. If GenBank annotators find errors, they write to the submitters, asking them to fix these
errors and submit an update.

Whole Genome Shotgun Sequences (WGS)

Genome centers are taking multiple approaches to sequencing complete genomes from a
number of organisms. In addition to the traditional clone-based sequencing whose data are
being submitted to HTGS, these centers are also using a WGS approach to sequence the
genome. The shotgun sequencing reads are assembled into contigs, which are now being
accepted for inclusion in GenBank. WGS contig assemblies may be updated as the sequencing
project progresses and new assemblies are computed. WGS sequence records may also contain
The NCBI Handbook

annotation, similar to other GenBank records.

Each sequencing project is assigned a stable project ID, which is made up of four letters. The
Accession number for a WGS sequence contains the project ID, a two-digit version number,
and six digits for the contig ID. For instance, a project would be assigned an Accession number
AAAX00000000. The first assembly version would be AAAX01000000. The last six digits of
this ID identify individual contigs. A master record for each assembly is created. This master
record contains information that is common among all records of the sequencing project, such
as the biological source, submitter, and publication information. There is also a link to the range
of Accession numbers for the individual contigs in this assembly.

WGS submissions can be created using tbl12asn, a utility that is packaged with the Sequin
submission software. Information on submitting these sequences can be found at Whole
Genome Shotgun Submissions.

Bulk Submissions: EST, STS, and GSS

The NCBI Handbook

Expressed Sequence Tags (EST), Sequence Tagged Sites (STSs), and Genome Survey
Sequences (GSSs) sequences are generally submitted in a batch and are usually part of a large
sequencing project devoted to a particular genome. These entries have a streamlined
submission process and undergo minimal processing before being loaded to GenBank.

ESTs are generally short (<1 kb), single-pass cDNA sequences from a particular tissue and/or
developmental stage. However, they can also be longer sequences that are obtained by

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

differential display or Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) experiments. The common
feature of all ESTs is that little is known about them; therefore, they lack feature annotation.

STSs are short genomic landmark sequences (1). They are operationally unique in that they
are specifically amplified from the genome by PCR amplification. In addition, they define a
specific location on the genome and are, therefore, useful for mapping.

GSSs are also short sequences but are derived from genomic DNA, about which little is known.
They include, but are not limited to, single-pass GSSs, BAC ends, exon-trapped genomic
sequences, and Alu PCR sequences.

EST, STS, and GSS sequences reside in their respective divisions within GenBank, rather than
in the taxonomic division of the organism. The sequences are maintained within GenBank in
the dbEST, dbSTS, and dbGSS databases.
The NCBI Handbook

Submitting Data to dbEST, dbSTS, or dbGSS

Because of the large numbers of sequences that are submitted at once, dbEST, dbSTS, and
dbGSS entries are stored in relational databases where information that is common to all
sequences can be shared. Submissions consist of several files containing the common
information, plus a file of the sequences themselves. The three types of submissions have
different requirements, but all include a Publication file and a Contact file. See the dbEST,
dbSTS, and dbGSS pages for the specific requirements for each type of submission.

In general, users generate the appropriate files for the submission type and then email the files
to [email protected]. If the files are too big for email, they can be deposited into a
FTP account. Upon receipt, the files are examined by a GenBank annotator, who fixes any
errors when possible or contacts the submitter to request corrected files. Once the files are
satisfactory, they are loaded into the appropriate database and assigned Accession numbers.
Additional formatting errors may be detected at this step by the data-loading software, such as
double quotes anywhere in the file or invalid characters in the sequences. Again, if the annotator
The NCBI Handbook

cannot fix the errors, a request for a corrected submission is sent to the user. After all problems
are resolved, the entries are loaded into GenBank.

Bulk Submissions: HTC and FLIC

HTC records are High-Throughput cDNA/mRNA submissions that are similar to ESTs but
often contain more information. For example, HTC entries often have a systematic gene name
(not necessarily an official gene name) that is related to the lab or center that submitted them,
and the longest open reading frame is often annotated as a coding region.

FLIC records, Full-Length Insert cDNA, contain the entire sequence of a cloned cDNA/mRNA.
Therefore, FLICs are generally longer, and sometimes even full-length, mRNAs. They are
usually annotated with genes and coding regions, although these may be lab systematic names
rather than functional names.

HTC Submissions
The NCBI Handbook

HTC entries are usually generated with Sequin or tbl2asn, and the files are emailed to gb-
[email protected]. If the files are too big for email, then by prior arrangement, the
submitter can deposit the files by FTP and send a notification to [email protected]
that files are on the FTP site.

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

HTC entries undergo the same validation and processing as non-bulk submissions. Once
processing is complete, the records are loaded into GenBank and are available in Entrez and
other retrieval systems.

FLIC Submissions
FLICs are processed via an automated FLIC processing system that is based on the HTG
automated processing system. Submitters use the program tbl2asn to generate their
submissions. As with HTG submissions, submissions to the automated FLIC processing system
must contain three identifiers: the genome center tag, the sequence name (SeqId), and the
Accession number. The genome center tag is assigned by NCBI and is generally the FTP
account login name. The sequence name is a unique identifier that is assigned by the submitter
to a particular clone or entry and must be unique within the group's FLIC submissions. When
a sequence is first submitted, it has only a sequence name and genome center tag; the Accession
number is assigned during processing. All updates to that entry include the center tag, sequence
The NCBI Handbook

name, and Accession number, or processing will fail.

The FLIC Processing Pathway

The FLIC processing system is analogous to the HTG processing system. Submitters deposit
their submissions in the FLICSEQSUBMIT directory of their FTP account and notify us that
the submissions are there. We then run the scripts to pick up the files from the FTP site and
copy them to the processing pathway, as well as to an archive. Once processing is complete
and if there are no errors in the submission, the files are automatically loaded into GenBank.

As with HTG submissions, FLIC entries can fail for three reasons: problems with the format,
problems with the identification of the record (the genome center, the SeqId, or the Accession
number), or problems with the data itself. When submissions fail FLIC processing, a GenBank
annotator sends email to the sequencing center, describing the problem and asking the center
to submit a corrected entry. Annotators do not fix incorrect submissions; this ensures that the
staff of the submitting genome center fixes the problems in their database as well. At the
The NCBI Handbook

completion of processing, reports are generated and deposited in the submitter's FTP account,
as described for HTG submissions.

Submission Tools
Direct submissions to GenBank are prepared using one of two submission tools, BankIt or
Sequin.

BankIt
BankIt is a Web-based form that is a convenient and easy way to submit a small number of
sequences with minimal annotation to GenBank. To complete the form, a user is prompted to
enter submitter information, the nucleotide sequence, biological source information, and
features and annotation pertinent to the submission. BankIt has extensive Help documentation
to guide the submitter. Included with the Help document is a set of annotation examples that
detail the types of information that are required for each type of submission. After the
information is entered into the form, BankIt transforms this information into a GenBank flatfile
The NCBI Handbook

for review. In addition, a number of quality assurance and validation checks ensure that the
sequence submitted to GenBank is of the highest quality. The submitter is asked to include
spans (sequence coordinates) for the coding regions and other features and to include amino
acid sequence for the proteins that derive from these coding regions. The BankIt validator
compares the amino acid sequence provided by the submitter with the conceptual translation
of the coding region based on the provided spans. If there is a discrepancy, the submitter is
requested to fix the problem, and the process is halted until the error is resolved. To prevent

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

the deposit of sequences that contain cloning vector sequence, a BLAST similarity search is
performed on the sequence, comparing it to the VecScreen database. If there is a match to this
database, the user is asked to remove the contaminating vector sequence from their submission
or provide an explanation as to why the screen was positive. Completed forms are saved in
ASN.1 format, and the entry is submitted to the GenBank processing queue. The submitter
receives confirmation by email, indicating that the submission process was successful.

Sequin
Sequin is more appropriate for complicated submissions containing a significant amount of
annotation or many sequences. It is a stand-alone application available on NCBI's FTP site.
Sequin creates submissions from nucleotide and amino acid sequences in FASTA format with
tagged biological source information in the FASTA definition line. As in BankIt, Sequin has
the ability to predict the spans of coding regions. Alternatively, a submitter can specify the
spans of their coding regions in a five-column, tab-delimited table and import that table into
The NCBI Handbook

Sequin. For submitting multiple, related sequences, e.g., those in a phylogenetic or population
study, Sequin accepts the output of many popular multiple sequence-alignment packages,
including FASTA+GAP, PHYLIP, MACAW, NEXUS Interleaved, and NEXUS Contiguous.
It also allows users to annotate features in a single record or a set of records globally. For more
information on Sequin, see Chapter 12.

Completed Sequin submissions should be emailed to GenBank at [email protected].

Larger files may be submitted by SequinMacrosend.

Sequence Data Flow and Processing: From Laboratory to GenBank

Triage
All direct submissions to GenBank, created either by Sequin or BankIt, are processed by the
GenBank annotation staff. The first step in processing submissions is called triage. Within 48
hours of receipt, the database staff reviews the submission to determine whether it meets the
minimal criteria for incorporation into GenBank and then assigns an Accession number to each
The NCBI Handbook

sequence. All sequences must be >50 bp in length and be sequenced by, or on behalf of, the
group submitting the sequence. GenBank will not accept sequences constructed in silico;
noncontiguous sequences containing internal, unsequenced spacers; or sequences for which
there is not a physical counterpart, such as those derived from a mix of genomic DNA and
mRNA. Submissions are also checked to determine whether they are new sequences or updates
to sequences submitted previously. After receiving Accession numbers, the sequences are put
into a queue for more extensive processing and review by the annotation staff.

Indexing
Triaged submissions are subjected to a thorough examination, referred to as the indexing phase.
Here, entries are checked for:
1 Biological validity. For example, does the conceptual translation of a coding region
match the amino acid sequence provided by the submitter? Annotators also ensure
that the source organism name and lineage are present, and that they are represented
The NCBI Handbook

in NCBI's taxonomy database. If either of these is not true, the submitter is asked to
correct the problem. Entries are also subjected to a series of BLAST similarity
searches to compare the annotation with existing sequences in GenBank.
2 Vector contamination. Entries are screened against NCBI's UniVec database to detect
contaminating cloning vector.

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

3 Publication status. If there is a published citation, PubMed and MEDLINE identifiers

are added to the entry so that the sequence and publication records can be linked in
Entrez.
4 Formatting and spelling. If there are problems with the sequence or annotation, the
annotator works with the submitter to correct them.
Completed entries are sent to the submitter for a final review before release into the public
database. If the submitters requested that their sequences be released after processing, they
have 5 days to make changes prior to release. The submitter may also request that GenBank
hold their sequence until a future date. The sequence must become publicly available once the
Accession number or the sequence has been published. The GenBank annotation staff currently
processes about 1,900 submissions per month, corresponding to approximately 20,000
sequences.

GenBank annotation staff must also respond to email inquiries that arrive at the rate of
The NCBI Handbook

approximately 200 per day. These exchanges address a range of topics including:
• updates to existing GenBank records, such as new annotation or sequence changes
• problem resolution during the indexing phase
• requests for release of the submitter's sequence data or an extension of the hold date
• requests for release of sequences that have been published but are not yet available in
GenBank
• lists of Accession numbers that are due to appear in upcoming issues of a publisher's
journals
• reports of potential annotation problems with entries in the public database
• requests for information on how to submit data to GenBank
One annotator is responsible for handling all email received in a 24-hour period, and all
messages must be acted upon and replied to in a timely fashion. Replies to previous emails are
forwarded to the appropriate annotator.
The NCBI Handbook

Processing Tools
The annotation staff uses a variety of tools to process and update sequence submissions.
Sequence records are edited with Sequin, which allows staff to annotate large sets of records
by global editing rather than changing each record individually. This is truly a time saver
because more than 100 entries can be edited in a single step (see Chapter 12 on Sequin for
more details). Records are stored in a database that is accessed through a queue management
tool that automates some of the processing steps, such as looking up taxonomy and PubMed
data, starting BLAST jobs, and running automatic validation checks. Hence, when an annotator
is ready to start working on an entry, all of this information is ready to view. In addition, all
of the correspondence between GenBank staff and the submitter is stored with the entry. For
updates to entries already present in the public database, the live version of the entry is retrieved
from ID, and after making changes, the annotator loads the entry back into the public database.
This entry is available to the public immediately after loading.
The NCBI Handbook

Microbial Genomes
The GenBank direct submissions group has processed more than 50 complete microbial
genomes since 1996. These genomes are relatively small in size compared with their eukaryotic
counterparts, ranging from five hundred thousand to five million bases. Nonetheless, these
genomes can contain thousands of genes, coding regions, and structural RNAs; therefore,
processing and presenting them correctly is a challenge. Currently, the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration has a 350-kilobase (kb) upper size limit for
sequence entries. Because a complete bacterial genome is larger than this arbitrary limit, it
must be split into pieces. GenBank routinely splits complete microbial genomes into 10-kb
pieces with a 60-bp overlap between pieces. Each piece contains approximately 10 genes. A
CON entry, containing instructions on how to put the pieces back together, is also made. The
CON entry contains descriptor information, such as source organism and references, as well
as a join statement providing explicit instructions on how to generate the complete genome
from the pieces. The Accession number assigned to the CON record is also added as a secondary
Accession number on each of the pieces that make up the complete genome (see Figure 2).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A GenBank CON entry for a complete bacterial genome

The information toward the bottom of the record describes how to generate the complete
genome from the pieces.

Submitting and Processing Data

Submitters of complete genomes are encouraged to contact us at [email protected]
before preparing their entries. A FTP account is required to submit large files, and the
submission should be deposited at least 1 month before publication to allow for processing
time and coordinated release before publication. In addition, submitters are required to follow
certain guidelines, such as providing unique identifiers for proteins and systematic names for
all genes. Entries should be prepared with the submission tool tbl2asn, a utility that is part of
the Sequin package (Chapter 12). This utility creates an ASN.1 submission file from a five-
column, tab-delimited file containing feature annotation, a FASTA-formatted nucleotide
The NCBI Handbook

sequence, and an optional FASTA-formatted protein sequence.

Complete genome submissions are reviewed by a member of the GenBank annotation staff to
ensure that the annotation and gene and protein identifiers are correct, and that the entry is in
proper GenBank format. Any problems with the entry are resolved through communication
with the submitter. Once the record is complete, the genome is carefully split into its component
pieces. The genome is split so that none of the breaks occurs within a gene or coding region.
A member of the annotation staff performs quality assurance checks on the set of genome

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

pieces to ensure that they are correct and representative of the complete genome. The pieces
are then loaded into GenBank, and the CON record is created.

The microbial genome records in GenBank are the building blocks for the Microbial Genome
Resources in Entrez Genomes.

Third Party Annotation (TPA) Sequence Database

The vast amount of publicly available data from the human genome project and other genome
sequencing efforts is a valuable resource for scientists throughout the world. A laboratory
studying a particular gene or gene family may have sequenced numerous cDNAs but has neither
the resources nor inclination to sequence large genomic regions containing the genes,
especially when the sequence is available in public databases. The researcher might choose
then to download genomic sequences from GenBank and perform experimental analyses on
these sequences. However, because this researcher did not perform the sequencing, the
The NCBI Handbook

sequence, with its new annotations, cannot be submitted to DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank. This is

unfortunate because important scientific information is being excluded from the public
databases. To address this problem, the International Nucleotide Sequence Database
Collaboration established a separate section of the database for such TPA (see Third Party
Annotation Sequence Database).

All sequences in the TPA database are derived from the publicly available collection of
sequences in DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank. Researchers can submit both new and alternative
annotations of genomic sequence to GenBank. TPA entries can be also created by combining
the exon sequences from genomic sequences or by making contigs of EST sequences to make
mRNA sequences. TPA submissions must use sequence data that are already represented in
DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank, have annotation that is experimentally supported, and appear in a
peer-reviewed scientific journal. TPA sequences will be released to the public database only
when their Accession numbers and/or sequence data appear in a peer-reviewed publication in
a biological journal.
The NCBI Handbook

Appendix: GenBank, RefSeq, TPA and UniProt: What’s in a Name?

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) often is asked about the
differences between its GenBank, RefSeq, and TPA databases and how they relate to the
UniProt database. This document was prepared in response to those inquiries, and more
specifically to a request from attendees at a 2006 workshop on microbial genomes held at NCBI
and attended by bacterial annotation groups, sequencing centers, and members of the American
Society for Microbiology (ASM). The article originally was published in the May 2007 issue
of the American Society for Microbiology’s journal Microbe (http://
www.microbemagazine.org/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=1270:genbank-refseq-tpa-and-uniprot-whats-in-a-
name&catid=347:letters&Itemid=419). While there was some input from the European
Bioinformatics Institute on UniProt and Swiss-Prot for the document, it represents an NCBI
perspective.
The NCBI Handbook

GenBank
NCBI’s GenBank database is a collection of publicly available annotated nucleotide sequences,
including mRNA sequences with coding regions, segments of genomic DNA with a single
gene or multiple genes, and ribosomal RNA gene clusters.

GenBank is specifically intended to be an archive of primary sequence data. Thus, to be

included, the sequencing must have been conducted by the submitter. NCBI does some quality

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

control checks and will notify a submitter if something appears amiss, but it does not curate
the data; the author has the final say on the sequence and annotation placed in the GenBank
record. Authors are encouraged to update their records with new sequence or annotation data,
but in practice records are seldom updated.

Records can be updated only by the author, or by a third party if the author has given them
permission and notified NCBI. This delegation of authority has happened in a limited number
of cases, generally where a genome sequence was determined by a lab or sequencing center
and updating rights were subsequently given to a model organism database, which then took
over ongoing maintenance of annotation.

Because GenBank is an archival database and includes all sequence data submitted, there are
multiple entries for some loci. Just as the primary literature includes similar experiments
conducted under slightly different conditions, GenBank may include many sequencing results
for the same loci. These different sequencing submissions can reflect genetic variations
The NCBI Handbook

between individuals or organisms, and analyzing these differences is one way of identifying
single nucleotide polymorphisms.

GenBank exchanges data daily with its two partners in the International Nucleotide Sequence
Database Collaboration (INSDC): the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) of the European
Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and the DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ). Nearly all
sequence data are deposited into INSDC databases by the labs that generate the sequences, in
part because journal publishers generally require deposition prior to publication so that an
accession number can be included in the paper.

If part of a GenBank nucleotide sequence encodes a protein, a conceptual translation – called

a coding region or coding sequence (CDS) – is annotated. A protein accession number (a
"protein id") is assigned to the translation product and is noted on the GenBank record. This
protein id is linked to a record for the protein sequence in NCBI’s protein databases. In the
UniProt database, described later, these sequences are contained in the TrEMBL (Translated
EMBL) portion of the database.
The NCBI Handbook

Further information about GenBank is available in the NCBI Handbook; also see the GenBank
overview at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html.

RefSeq
The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) database is a curated collection of DNA, RNA, and protein
sequences built by NCBI. Unlike GenBank, RefSeq provides only one example of each natural
biological molecule for major organisms ranging from viruses to bacteria to eukaryotes. For
each model organism, RefSeq aims to provide separate and linked records for the genomic
DNA, the gene transcripts, and the proteins arising from those transcripts. RefSeq is limited
to major organisms for which sufficient data is available (almost 4,000 distinct “named”
organisms as of January 2007), while GenBank includes sequences for any organism submitted
(approximately 250,000 different named organisms).

To produce RefSeq records, NCBI culls the best available information on each molecule and
The NCBI Handbook

updates the records as more information emerges. A commonly used analogy is that if GenBank
is akin to the primary research literature, RefSeq is akin to the review literature.

In some cases, creation of a RefSeq record involves no more than selecting a single good
example from GenBank and making a copy in RefSeq, which credits the GenBank record. In
other cases, NCBI in-house staff generates and annotates the records based on the existing
primary data, sometimes by combining parts of several GenBank records. Also, some records

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

are automatically imported from other curated databases, such as the SGD database of yeast
genome data and the FlyBase database of Drosophila genomes (for a list of RefSeq
collaborators see www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/RefSeq/collaborators). The approach selected for
creating a RefSeq record depends on the specific organism and the quality of information
available.

When NCBI first creates a RefSeq record, the record initially reflects only the information
from the source GenBank record with added links. At this point, the record has not yet been
reviewed by NCBI staff, and therefore it is identified as “provisional.” After NCBI examines
the record – often adding information from other GenBank records, such as the sequences for
the 5’UTR and 3’UTR, and providing further literature references – it is marked as “reviewed.”

RefSeq records appear in a similar format as the GenBank records from which they are derived.
However, they can be distinguished from GenBank records by their accession prefix, which
includes an underscore, and a notation in the “comment” field that indicates the RefSeq status.
The NCBI Handbook

RefSeq records can be accessed through NCBI’s Nucleotide and Protein databases, which are
among the many databases linked through the Entrez search and retrieval system. When
retrieving search results, users can choose to see all GenBank records or only RefSeq records
by clicking on the appropriate tab at the top of the results page. Users also can choose to search
only RefSeq records, or specific types of RefSeq records (such as mRNAs), by using the
“Limits” feature in Entrez. Further information about the database can be obtained at the
RefSeq homepage.

Key Characteristics of GenBank versus RefSeq

GenBank RefSeq

Not curated Curated

Author submits NCBI creates from existing data

Only author can revise NCBI revises as new data emerge

The NCBI Handbook

Multiple records for same loci common Single records for each molecule of major organisms

Records can contradict each other

No limit to species included Limited to model organisms

Data exchanged among INSDC members Exclusive NCBI database

Akin to primary literature Akin to review articles

Proteins identified and linked Proteins and transcripts identified and linked

Access via NCBI Nucleotide databases Access via Nucleotide & Protein databases

TPA
The Third Party Annotation (TPA) database contains sequences that are derived or assembled
from sequences already in the INSDC databases. Whereas DDBJ, EMBL and GenBank contain
primary sequence data and corresponding annotations submitted by the laboratories that did
The NCBI Handbook

the sequencing, the TPA database contains nucleotide sequences built from the existing
primary data with new annotation that has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
The database includes two types of records: experimental (supported by wet-lab evidence) and
inferential (where the annotation is inferred and not the subject of direct experimentation).

TPA bridges the gap between GenBank and RefSeq, permitting authors publishing new
experimental evidence to re-annotate sequences in a public database as they think best, even
if they were not the primary sequencer or the curator of a model organism database. These

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

records are part of the INSDC collaboration, and thus appear in all three databases (GenBank,
DDBJ and EMBL).

Like GenBank and RefSeq records, TPA records can be retrieved through the Nucleotide
section of Entrez. The TPA records can be distinguished from other records by the definition
line, which begins with the letters "TPA," and by the Keywords field, which states "Third Party
Annotation; TPA." Users can restrict their search to TPA data by selecting the database in the
Properties search field or by adding the command “AND tpa[prop]” to their query. The database
is significantly smaller than GenBank, with about one record for every 12,000 in GenBank.
Details about how to submit data and examples of what can and cannot be submitted to TPA
are provided on the TPA homepage.

UniProt
UniProt (Universal Protein Resource) is a protein sequence database that was formed through
the merger of three separate protein databases: the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics’ and the
The NCBI Handbook

European Bioinformatics Institute’s Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL (Translated EMBL Nucleotide

Sequence Data Library) databases, and Georgetown University’s PIR-PSD (Protein
Information Resource Protein Sequence Database).

Swiss-Prot and TrEMBL continue as two separate sections of the UniProt database. The Swiss-
Prot component consists of manually annotated protein sequence records that have added
information, such as binding sites for drugs. The TrEMBL portion consists of computationally
analyzed sequence records that are awaiting full manual annotation; following curation, they
are transferred to Swiss-Prot.

TrEMBL is derived from the CDS translations annotated on records in the INSDC databases,
with some additional computational merging and adjustment. Given the very high rate of
sequencing, and the effort it takes to do manual annotation, the Swiss-Prot component of
UniProt is generally much smaller than the TrEMBL component. Because Swiss-Prot’s manual
annotation provides much additional information, NCBI’s protein databases provide links to
The NCBI Handbook

Swiss-Prot records, even if the sequence is the same as one or more INSDC translations.

Key Characteristics of UniProt versus GenBank and RefSeq

UniProt GenBank and RefSeq

Produced by SIB, EBI & Georgetown U. Produced by INSDC and NCBI

Protein data only Protein and nucleotide data

Curated in Swiss-Prot, not in TrEMBL Curated in RefSeq, not in GenBank

References
1. Olson M, Hood L, Cantor C, Botstein D. A common language for physical mapping of the human
genome. Science 1989;245(4925):1434–1435. [PubMed: 2781285]
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

PubMed: The Bibliographic Database

[Chapter 2]

Kathi Canese
Jennifer Jentsch
Carol Myers

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

PubMed is a database developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at
the National Library of Medicine (NLM), one of the institutes of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH). The database was designed to provide access to citations (with abstracts) from biomedical
journals. Subsequently, a linking feature was added to provide access to full-text journal articles at
Web sites of participating publishers, as well as to other related Web resources. PubMed is the
bibliographic component of the NCBI's Entrez retrieval system.

Data Sources
MEDLINE®
PubMed's primary data resource is MEDLINE, the NLM's premier bibliographic database
covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system,
and the preclinical sciences, such as molecular biology. MEDLINE contains bibliographic
citations and author abstracts from about 4,600 biomedical journals published in the United
The NCBI Handbook

States and 70 other countries. The database contains about 12 million citations dating back to
the mid-1960s. Coverage is worldwide, but most records are from English-language sources
or have English abstracts.

Non-MEDLINE
In addition to MEDLINE citations, PubMed® provides access to non-MEDLINE resources,
such as out-of-scope citations, citations that precede MEDLINE selection, and PubMed Central
(PMC; see Chapter 9) citations. Together, these are often referred to as “PubMed-only
citations.” Out-of-scope citations are primarily from general science and chemistry journals
that contain life sciences articles indexed for MEDLINE, e.g., the plate tectonics or
astrophysics articles from Science magazine. Publishers can also submit citations with
publication dates that precede the journal's selection for MEDLINE indexing, usually because
they want to create links to older content. PMC citations are taken from life sciences journals
(MEDLINE or non-MEDLINE) that submit full-text articles to PMC. In addition to the
incorporation of PubMed-only citations, PubMed has been enhanced recently by the
The NCBI Handbook

incorporation of citations from the following unique databases: HealthSTAR, AIDSLINE,

HISTLINE, SPACELINE, BIOETHICSLINE, and POPLINE.

In response to new approaches to electronic publishing, PubMed can now also accommodate
articles published electronically in advance of being collected into an issue. We refer to these
citations as "ahead of print" or "epub" citations.

Journal Selection Criteria

All content in PubMed ultimately comes from publishers of biomedical journals, and journals
that are to be included in MEDLINE are subject to a selection process. The Fact Sheet on
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Journal Selection for Index Medicus®/MEDLINE® describes the journal selection policy,
criteria, and procedures for data submission.

Electronic Data Submission

Electronic data submission benefits everyone: publishers, the NLM, and users. For the NLM,
it eliminates the tremendous costs associated with entering data by hand. For publishers and
users, it means that newly published data appear rapidly and accurately in PubMed. Some
publishers are now making pre-publication material available before it is formally published
(“ahead of print” or “epub” citations); others are publishing electronic-only journals. By close
collaboration with the publisher, the citations for these publications can appear in PubMed on
the same day as the article is published.

Furthermore, electronic data submission allows publishers to create links from abstracts in
PubMed to the full text of the appropriate articles available on their own Web site. This can
The NCBI Handbook

be achieved using LinkOut (Chapter 17). Both subscribers to the journals and other PubMed
users can access the full text according to criteria that are determined by the publishers,
increasing traffic to their sites.

Although the NLM works with many publishers directly, some publishers contract with
commercial data aggregators, companies that prepare and submit the publisher's data to the
NLM. Many aggregators also host publisher data on their Web sites.

Electronic Data Submission Process

All electronic data are supplied via FTP to NCBI in XML format, in accordance with the NLM's
specifications (document type definition, or DTD). These specifications can be found in NLM
Standard Publisher Data Format document. The document includes information on XML tag
descriptions, how to handle special characters (e.g., α or β), examples of tagged records, the
PubMed DTD, and a FAQ section for participating or potential data providers. Publishers or
other data providers who want to submit electronic data should write to:
The NCBI Handbook

[email protected].

NCBI staff will guide new data providers through the approval process for file submission.
New providers are asked to submit test files, which are then checked for XML formatting and
syntax and for bibliographic accuracy and completeness. The files are revised and resubmitted
as many times as necessary until all criteria are met. Once approved, a private account is set
up on our FTP site to receive new journal issues, or in the case of online publications, individual
articles as they are added to the publisher's Web site. We run a file-loading script that
automatically processes the files daily, Monday through Friday at approximately 9:00 a.m.
(Eastern Time). The new citations are assigned a PubMed ID number (PMID), a confirmation
report is sent to the provider, and the new citations usually become available in PubMed
sometime after 11:00 a.m. the next day, Tuesday through Saturday.

After posting in PubMed, the citations are forwarded to NLM's Indexing Section for
bibliographic data verification and for the addition of subject indexing terms from Medical
Subject Headings [MeSH]. This process can take several weeks, after which time completed
The NCBI Handbook

citations flow back into PubMed, replacing the originally submitted data.

Database Management and Hardware

PubMed is one of the NCBI databases within the relational database management system,
Entrez (see Chapter 15). Entrez is a text-based search and retrieval system based on in-house
software that uses an indexing system for rapid retrieval of information.

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Requests for NCBI services, including PubMed, are first proxied through three load-balanced
Dell PowerEdge 1650 servers, each with two central processing units. The proxy servers, in
turn, load-balance requests forwarded on to the Web servers for PubMed and other NCBI
services.

The PubMed Web servers comprise eight Dell PowerEdge 8450 servers. The Dell servers have
eight central processing units, 8 GB of memory, and about 300 GB of disk space and run the
Linux operating system.

The Web servers retrieve PubMed records from two Sybase SQL database servers, which run
on Sun Enterprise 450s. To accommodate the data volume output by PubMed and other Web-
based services, the NLM has a high-speed connection (OC-3, up to 155 Mbits/sec) to the
Internet, as well as a 622 Mbits/sec connection (OC-12) to Internet2, the noncommercial
network used by many leading research universities.
The NCBI Handbook

Indexing
PubMed Citation Status and Assignment of MeSH Terms
Citations in PubMed are assigned one of three citation status tags that display next to the
PubMed ID (PMID) numbers on all PubMed citations. The citation status tags indicate the
citation's stage in the MEDLINE indexing process. The three tags are:

[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]: This tag is displayed on citations added recently to

PubMed via electronic submission from a publisher (which may or may not move on for
MEDLINE MeSH indexing).

[PubMed - in process]: This tag is displayed on citations that have had the first stage of quality
review to verify that the journal, date, volume, and/or issue are correct. They will be reviewed
for other accurate bibliographic data at the article level (e.g., pagination, authors, article title,
and abstract) and indexed, i.e., the articles will be reviewed and MeSH vocabulary will be
assigned (if the subject of the article is within the scope of MEDLINE).
The NCBI Handbook

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]: This tag is displayed on citations that have been indexed
with MeSH, Publication Types, Registry Numbers, etc., and have been completely reviewed
for accurate bibliographic data. This is an intellectual process of assigning controlled
vocabulary terms to describe the contents of the journal article and verifying other aspects of
the citation data.

Most citations that are received electronically from publishers progress through “in process”
status to MEDLINE status. Those citations not indexed for MEDLINE remain tagged [PubMed
- as supplied by publisher]. Citations with “in process” status proceed to MEDLINE status
after MeSH terms, publication types, sequence Accession numbers, and other indexing data
are added.

All records are added to PubMed Monday through Friday and become available for viewing
Tuesday through Saturday. For additional information, please see the NLM Fact Sheet: What's
The NCBI Handbook

the Difference Between MEDLINE® and PubMed®?

The Automatic Computer Indexing Process

The aim of the computer indexing process is to automatically create multiple machine-readable
access points that refer to the different components of the journal citations for use when
searching PubMed. The citations are loaded into PubMed from both the NLM Data Creation

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

and Maintenance System (DCMS) and directly from journal publishers (Figure 1). Both
sources are in XML.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A schematic representation of PubMed data flow

During the computer indexing process, the citation information is broken down into index
fields such as Journal Name, Author Name, and Title/Abstract. The words in each of the fields
The NCBI Handbook

are checked against the corresponding index (i.e., title words in a new citation are looked up
in the Title/Abstract Index). If the word already exists, the PMID of the citation is listed with
that index term. If the word is a new one for the Index, it is added as a new Index term, and
the PMID is listed alongside it. (In the first instance that the term already exists, the new term
will have only this one citation associated with it; this is how the PubMed indexes grow.)

Each PubMed citation is, therefore, associated with several indexes, and in cases similar to the
Title/Abstract Index, many different index terms can refer back to a single citation. Likewise,
commonly used terms will refer to thousands of citations (the term “cell”, for example, is found
in the Title/Abstract of 1,092,124 citations at the time of this writing). The Field Indexes can
be browsed by using PubMed's Preview/Index function.

How PubMed Queries Are Processed

Automatic Term Mapping
The NCBI Handbook

PubMed uses Automatic Term Mapping to process words entered in the query box by someone
searching PubMed. Terms entered without a qualifier, i.e., a simple text phrase that does not
specify a search field, are looked up against the following translation tables and indexes in a
distinct order:

1. MeSH Translation Table

2. Journals Translation Table

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

3. Author Index

1. MeSH Translation Table

The MeSH Translation Table contains:
• MeSH Terms
• Subheadings
• See-Reference mappings (also known as entry terms) for MeSH terms
• Mappings derived from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) that have
equivalent synonyms or lexical variants in English
• Names of Substances and synonyms to the Names of Substances (now known as
Supplementary Concept Substance Names)
If the search term is found in this translation table, the term will be mapped to the appropriate
The NCBI Handbook

MeSH term, and the Indexes will be searched as both the text word entered by the user and the
MeSH term:

Search term: gallstones

“Gallstones” is an entry term for the MeSH term “cholelithiasis” in the MeSH translation
table.
Search translated to: “cholelithiasis” [MeSH Terms] OR gallstones [Text Word]

When a term is searched as a MeSH term, PubMed automatically searches that term plus the
more specific terms underneath in the MeSH hierarchy:

Search term: breast cancer

“Breast cancer” is an entry term for the MeSH term “breast neoplasms” in the MeSH
translation table.
The NCBI Handbook

“Breast neoplasms” has the specific headings “breast neoplasms, male”, “mammary
neoplasms”, “mammary neoplasms, experimental”, and “phyllodes tumor”, all of which are
also searched.

2. Journals Translation Table

If the search term(s) is not found in the MeSH Translation Table, the PubMed search algorithm
then looks up the term in the Journals Translation Table, which contains the full journal title,
MEDLINE abbreviation, and International Standard Serial Number (ISSN):

Search term: New England Journal of Medicine

“New England Journal of Medicine” maps to N Engl J Med.
Search translated to: “N Engl J Med” [Journal Name]
The NCBI Handbook

If a journal name is also a MeSH term, PubMed will search the term as both a MeSH term and
as a Text Word, but not as a journal name, for a search that does not specify the “journal” field:

Search term: Cell

Search translated as: “cells” [MeSH Terms] OR cell [Text Word]

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Search term: Cell [Journal]

Search translated as: “Cell” [Journal]

3. Author Index
If the phrase is not found in MeSH or the Journals Translation Table and is a word with one
or two letters after it, PubMed then checks the Author Index. The author's name should be
entered in the form: Last Name (space) Initials, e.g., o'malley f, smith jp, or gomez-sanchez
m.

If only one initial is used, PubMed finds all names with that first initial, and if only an author's
last name is entered, PubMed will search that name in All Fields. It will not default to the
Author Index because an initial does not follow the last name:
The NCBI Handbook

Search term: o'malley f

Search translated as: o'malley fa, o'malley fb, o'malley fc, o'malley fd, o'malley f jr, etc.

Search term: o'malley

Search translated as: “o'malley” [All Fields]

A history of the NLM's author indexing policy regarding the number of authors to include in
a citation is outlined in Table 1.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
History of NLM author-indexing policy
Dates Policy

1966–1984 MEDLINE did not limit the number of authors.

1984–1995 The NLM limited the number of authors to 10, with “et al.” as the eleventh occurrence.

1996–1999 The NLM increased the limit from 10 to 25. If there were more than 25 authors, the first 24 were listed, the last author was used
as the 25th, and the twenty-sixth and beyond became “et al.”.

2000–present MEDLINE does not limit the number of authors.

Search Rules and Field Abbreviations

It is possible to override PubMed's Automatic Term Mapping by using search rules, syntax,
and qualifying terms with search field abbreviations.
The NCBI Handbook

The Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT must be entered in uppercase letters and are
processed left to right. Nesting of search terms is possible by enclosing concepts in parentheses.
The terms inside the set of parentheses will be processed as a unit and then incorporated into
the overall strategy. Terms may be qualified using PubMed's Search Field Descriptions and
Tags. Each search term should be followed by the appropriate search field tag, which indicates
which field will be searched:

Search term: o'malley [au] will search only the author field. Specifying the field precludes the
Automatic Term Mapping, which would result in the search o'malley[All Fields] if the field
were not specified. Similarly, using the search term Cell [Journal] avoids using the MeSH
Translation Table, which would interpret Cell as only a text word and MeSH term.

Using PubMed
Searching
Simple Searching
The NCBI Handbook

A simple search can be conducted from the PubMed homepage by entering terms in the query
box and pressing Enter from the keyboard or clicking on the Go button on the screen.

If more than one term is entered in the query box, PubMed will go through the Automatic Term
Mapping protocol described in the previous section, first looking for all the terms, as typed, to
find an exact match. If the exact phrase is not found, PubMed clips a term off the end and
repeats Automatic Term Mapping, again looking for an exact match, but this time to the
abbreviated query. This continues until none of the words are found in any one of the translation
tables. In this case, PubMed combines terms (with the AND Boolean operator) and applies the
Automatic Term Mapping process to each individual word. PubMed ignores Stopwords, such
as “about”, “of”, or “what”. People can also apply their own Boolean operators (AND, OR,
NOT) to multiple search terms; the Boolean operators must be in uppercase.

Search term: vitamin c common cold

The NCBI Handbook

Translated as: ((“ascorbic acid” [MeSH Terms] OR vitamin c [Text Word]) AND
(“common cold” [MeSH Terms] OR common cold [Text Word]))

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

Search term: single cell separation brain

Translated as: (((“single person” [MeSH Terms] OR single [Text Word]) AND (“cell
separation” [MeSH Terms] OR cell separation [Text Word])) AND (“brain” [MeSH Terms]
OR brain [Text Word]))

If a phrase of more than two terms is not found in any translation table, then the last word of
the phrase is dropped, and the remainder of the phrase is sent through the entire process again.
This continues, removing one word at a time, until a match is found.

If there is no match found during the Automatic Term Mapping process, the individual terms
will be combined with AND and searched in All Fields.

One can see how PubMed interpreted a search by selecting Details from the Features Bar on
the PubMed search pages after completing a search. For more information, see Details.
The NCBI Handbook

Complex Searching
There are a variety of ways that PubMed can be searched in a more sophisticated manner than
simply typing search terms into the search box and selecting Go. It is possible to construct
complex search strategies using Boolean operators and the various functions listed below,
provided in the Features Bar:
• Limits restricts search terms to a specific search field.
• Preview/Index allows users to view and select terms from search field indexes and to
preview the number of search results before displaying citations.
• History holds previous search strategies and results. The results can be combined to
make new searches.
• Clipboard allows users to save or view selected citations from one search or several
searches.
The NCBI Handbook

• Details displays the search strategy as it was translated by PubMed, including error
messages.
Additional PubMed Features
The following resources are available to facilitate effective searches:
• MeSH Database allows searching of MeSH, NLM's controlled vocabulary. Users can
find MeSH terms appropriate to a search strategy, obtain information about each term,
and view the terms within their hierarchical structure.
• Clinical Queries is a set of search filters developed for clinicians to retrieve clinical
studies of the etiology, prognosis, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of disorders. The
Systematic Reviews feature retrieves systematic reviews and meta-analysis studies by
topic.
• Journal Database allows searches of journal names, MEDLINE abbreviations, or ISSN
numbers for journals that are included in the Entrez system. A list of journals with
The NCBI Handbook

links to full text is also included.

• Single Citation Matcher is a “fill-in-the-blank” form that allows a user to find the
PubMed ID (PMID) number for a single article or all citations in a given journal issue
by entering partial journal citation information.
• Batch Citation Matcher allows users to find PMID numbers that correspond to their
own list of citations. Publishers or other database providers who want to link directly

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

from bibliographic references on their Web sites to entries in PubMed use this service
frequently.
• Cubby is a place for users to store search strategies, LinkOut preferences, and changes
to the default Document Delivery Services.
Results
PubMed retrieves and displays search results in the Summary format in the order the record
was initially added to PubMed, with the most recent first. (Note that this date can differ widely
from the publication date.) Citations can be viewed in several other formats and can be
sorted, saved, and printed, or the full text can be ordered.

Links from PubMed

A variety of links can be found on PubMed citations including:
The NCBI Handbook

Related Articles, which retrieves a precalculated set of PubMed citations that are closely related
to the selected article. PubMed creates this set by comparing words from the title, abstract, and
MeSH terms using a word-weighted algorithm.

LinkOut, which provides links to publishers, aggregators, libraries, biological databases,

sequencing centers, and other Web sites. These link to the provider's site to obtain the full text
of articles or related resources, e.g., consumer health information or molecular biology database
records. There may be a charge to access the text or information, depending on the policy of
the provider.

Books, which provides links to textbooks so that users can explore unfamiliar concepts found
in search results. In collaboration with book publishers, NCBI is adapting textbooks for the
Web and linking them to PubMed. The Books link displays a facsimile of the abstract, in which
some words or phrases show up as hypertext links to the corresponding terms in the books
available at NCBI. Selecting a hyperlinked word or phrase takes you to a list of book entries
The NCBI Handbook

in which the phrase is found.

NCBI databases, as well as other resources, may be available from the Links pull-down menu
to the right of each citation and from the Display pull-down menu. PubMed will return only
the first 500 items when using the Display pull-down menu, from which the following links
are available:
• Protein – amino acid (protein) sequences from SWISS-PROT, PIR, PRF, and PDB and
translated protein sequences from the DNA sequences databases.
• Nucleotide – DNA sequences from GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ.
• PopSet – aligned sequences submitted as a set from a population, phylogenetic, or
mutation study describing such events as evolution and population variation.
• Structure – three-dimensional structures from the Molecular Modeling Database
(MMDB) that were determined by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.
• Genome – records and graphic displays of entire genomes and chromosomes for
The NCBI Handbook

megabase-scale sequences.
• ProbeSet – gene expression data repository and online resource for the retrieval of gene
expression data from any organism or artificial source.
• OMIM – directory of human genes and genetic disorders.
• SNP – dbSNP is a database of single nucleotide polymorphisms.

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

• Domains – The Domains database is used to identify the conserved domains present
in a protein sequence.
• 3D Domains – the domains from Entrez Structure.
• PMC – PubMed Central.
How to Create Hyperlinks to PubMed
The Entrez system provides three distinct ways to create Web URL links that search and retrieve
items from PubMed and the molecular biology databases: (1) by using the Entrez Programming
Utilities; (2) via the URL button on the Details screen; and (3) by constructing URLs by
hand.

The Entrez Programming Utilities can be used to create URL links directly to all Entrez data,
including PubMed citations and their link information, without using the front-end Entrez
query engine. These Utilities provide a fast, efficient way to search and download citation data.
The NCBI Handbook

Customer Support
If you need more assistance, please contact our Customer Support services by selecting the
Write to the Help Desk link displayed on all PubMed pages or by sending an email to
[email protected]. You may also contact the NLM Customer Service Desk at
1-888-346-3656 [(1-888)-FINDNLM]. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday from
8:30 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Additional information is also available in the PubMed Tutorial, PubMed Training Manuals,
and NLM Technical Bulletin.

FAQs are available on all PubMed pages.

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

Macromolecular Structure Databases

[Chapter 3]

Eric Sayers
Steve Bryant

Summary
The resources provided by NCBI for studying the three-dimensional (3D) structures of proteins center
The NCBI Handbook

around two databases: the Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB), which provides structural
information about individual proteins; and the Conserved Domain Database (CDD), which provides
a directory of sequence and structure alignments representing conserved functional domains within
proteins(CDs). Together, these two databases allow scientists to retrieve and view structures, find
structurally similar proteins to a protein of interest, and identify conserved functional sites.
To enable scientists to accomplish these tasks, NCBI has integrated MMDB and CDD into the Entrez
retrieval system (Chapter 15). In addition, structures can be found by BLAST, because sequences
derived from MMDB structures have been included in the BLAST databases (Chapter 16). Once a
protein structure has been identified, the domains within the protein, as well as domain
“neighbors” (i.e., those with similar structure) can be found. For novel data not yet included in Entrez,
there are separate search services available.
Protein structures can be visualized using Cn3D, an interactive 3D graphic modeling tool. Details of
the structure, such as ligand-binding sites, can be scrutinized and highlighted. Cn3D can also display
multiple sequence alignments based on sequence and/or structural similarity among related
sequences, 3D domains, or members of a CDD family. Cn3D images and alignments can be
The NCBI Handbook

manipulated easily and exported to other applications for presentation or further analysis.

Overview
The Structure homepage (Figure 1) contains links to the more specialized pages for each of
the main tools and databases, introduced below, as well as search facilities for the Molecular
Modeling Database (MMDB; Ref. 1).
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Structure homepage

This page can be found by selecting the Structure link on the tool bar atop many NCBI Web
pages. Two searches can be performed from this page, an Entrez Structure search or a Structure
Summary search. Both query the MMDB database. The difference is that the Entrez
Structure can take any text as a query (such as a PDB code, protein name, text word, author,
or journal) and will result initially in a list of one or more document summaries, displayed
within the Entrez environment (Chapter 15), whereas only a PDB code or MMDB ID number
can be used for the Structure Summary search, resulting in direct display of the Structure
Summary page for that record (Figure 2). Announcements about new features or updates can
also be found on this page, as well as links to more specialized pages on the various Structure
databases and tools.

MMDB is based on the structures within Protein Data Bank (PDB) and can be queried using
The NCBI Handbook

the Entrez search engine, as well as via the more direct but less flexible Structure Summary
search (see Figure 1). Once found, any structure of interest can be viewed using Cn3D (2), a
piece of software that can be freely downloaded for Mac, PC, and UNIX platforms.

Often used in conjunction with Cn3D is the Vector Alignment Search Tool (VAST; Refs. 3,
4). VAST is used to precompute “structure neighbors” or structures similar to each MMDB
entry. For people that have a set of 3D coordinates for a protein not yet in MMDB, there is also
a VAST search service. The output of the precomputed VAST searches is a list of structure

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

records, each representing one of the Non-Redundant PDB chain sets (nr-PDB), which can
also be downloaded. There are four clustered subsets of MMDB that compose nr-PDB, each
consisting of clusters having a preset level of sequence similarity.

The structures within MMDB are now being linked to the NCBI Taxonomy database (Chapter
4). Known as the PDBeast project, this effort makes it possible to find: (1) all MMDB structures
from a particular organism; and (2) all structures within a node of the taxonomy tree (such as
lizards or Bacillus), which launches the Taxonomy Browser showing the number of MMDB
records in each node.

The second database within the Structure resources is the Conserved Domain Database (CDD;
Ref. 5), originally based largely on Pfam and SMART, collections of alignments that represent
functional domains conserved across evolution. CDD now also contains the alignments of the
NCBI COG database, the NCBI Library of Ancient Domains (LOAD) along with new curated
alignments assembled at NCBI. CDD can be searched from the CDD page in several ways,
The NCBI Handbook

including by a domain keyword search. Three tools have been developed to assist in analysis
of CDD: (1) the CD-Search, which uses a BLAST-based algorithm to search the position-
specific scoring matrices (PSSM) of CDD alignments; (2) the CD-Browser, which provides a
graphic display of domains of interest, along with the sequence alignment; and (3) the
Conserved Domain Architecture Retrieval Tool (CDART), which searches for proteins with
similar domain architectures.

All the above databases and tools are discussed in more detail in other parts of this Chapter,
including tips on how to make the best use of them.

Content of the Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB)

Sources of Primary Data
To build MMDB (1), 3D structure data are retrieved from the PDB database (6) administered
by the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB). In all cases, the structures
The NCBI Handbook

in MMDB have been determined by experimental methods, primarily X-ray crystallography

and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Theoretical structure models are
omitted. The data in each record are then checked for agreement between the atomic
coordinates and the primary sequence, and the sequence data are then extracted from the
coordinate set. The resulting agreement between sequence and structure allows the record to
be linked efficiently into searches and alignment displays involving other NCBI databases.

The data are converted into ASN.1 (7), which can be parsed easily and can also accept numerous
annotations to the structure data. In contrast to a PDB record, a MMDB record in ASN.1
contains all necessary bonding information in addition to sequence information, allowing
consistent display of the 3D structure using Cn3D. The annotations provided in the PDB record
by the submitting authors are added, along with uniformly defined secondary structure and
domain features. These features support structure-based similarity searches using VAST.
Finally, two coordinate subsets are added to the record: one containing only backbone atoms,
and one representing a single-conformer model in cases where multiple conformations or
structures were present in the PDB record. Both of these additions further simplify viewing
The NCBI Handbook

both an individual structure and its alignments with structure neighbors in Cn3D. When this
process is complete, the record is assigned a unique Accession number, the MMDB-ID (Box
1), while also retaining the original four-character PDB code.

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Box 1
Accession numbers
MMDB records have several types of Accession numbers associated with them,
representing the following data types:
• Each MMDB record has at least three Accession numbers: the PDB code of the
corresponding PDB record (e.g., 1CYO, 1B8G); a unique MMDB-ID (e.g., 645,
12342); and a gi number for each protein chain. A new MMDB-ID is assigned
whenever PDB updates either the sequence or coordinates of a structure record,
even if the PDB code is retained.
• If an MMDB record contains more than one polypeptide or nucleotide chain, each
chain in the MMDB record is assigned an Accession number in Entrez Protein or
Nucleotide consisting of the PDB code followed by the letter designating that chain
(e.g., 1B8GA, 3TATB, 1MUHB).
The NCBI Handbook

• Each 3D Domain identified in an MMDB record is assigned a unique integer

identifier that is appended to the Accession number of the chain to which it belongs
(e.g., 1B8G A 2). This new Accession number becomes its identifier in Entrez 3D
Domains. New 3D Domain identifiers are assigned whenever a new MMDB-ID is
assigned.
• For conserved domains, the Accession number is based on the source database:

Pfam: pfam00049
SMART: smart00078
LOAD: LOAD Toprim
CD: cd00101
COG: COG5641
The NCBI Handbook

Annotation of 3D Domains
After initial processing, 3D domains are automatically identified within each MMDB record.
3D domains are annotations on individual MMDB structures that define the boundaries of
compact substructures contained within them. In this way, they are similar to secondary
structure annotations that define the boundaries of helical or β-strand substructures. Because
proteins are often similar at the level of domains, VAST compares each 3D domain to every
other one and to complete polypeptide chains. The results are stored in Entrez as a Related 3D
Domain link.

To identify 3D domains within a polypeptide chain, MMDB's domain parser searches for one
or more breakpoints in the structure. These breakpoints fall between major secondary structure
elements such that the ratio of intra- to interdomain contacts remains above a set threshold.
The 3D domains identified in this way provide a means to both increase the sensitivity of
structure neighbor calculations and also present 3D superpositions based on compact domains
The NCBI Handbook

as well as on complete polypeptide chains. They are not intended to represent domains
identified by comparative sequence and structure analysis, nor do they represent modules that
recur in related proteins, although there is often good agreement between domain boundaries
identified by these methods.

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Links to Other NCBI Resources

After initially processing the PDB record, structure staff add a number of links and other
information that further integrate the MMDB record with other NCBI resources. To begin, the
sequence information extracted from the PDB record is entered into the Entrez Protein and/or
Nucleotide databases as appropriate, providing a means to retrieve the structure information
from sequence searches. As with all sequences in Entrez, precomputed BLAST searches are
then performed on these sequences, linking them to other molecules of similar sequence. For
proteins, these BLAST neighbors may be different than those determined by VAST; whereas
VAST uses a conservative significance threshold, the structural similarities it detects often
represent remote relationships not detectable by sequence comparison. The literature citations
in the PDB record are linked to PubMed so that Entrez searches can allow access to the original
descriptions of the structure determinations. Finally, semiautomatic processing of the “source”
field of the PDB record provides links to the NCBI Taxonomy database. Although these links
normally follow the genus and species information given, in some cases this information is
The NCBI Handbook

either absent in the PDB record or refers only to how a sample was obtained. In these cases,
the staff manually enters the appropriate taxonomy links.

The MMDB Record

The Structure Summary page for each MMDB record summarizes the database content for that
record and serves as a starting point for analyzing the record using the NCBI structure tools
(Figure 2).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Structure Summary page

The page consists of three parts: the header, the view bar, and the graphic display. The header
contains basic identifying information about the record: a description of the protein
(Description:), the author list (Deposition:), the species of origin (Taxonomy:), literature
references (Reference:), the MMDB-ID (MMDB:), and the PDB code (PDB:). Several of these
The NCBI Handbook

data serve as links to additional information. For example, the species name links to the
Taxonomy browser, the literature references link to PubMed, and the PDB code links to the
PDB Web site. The view bar allows the user to view the structure record either as a graphic
with Cn3D or as a text record in either ASN.1, PDB (RasMol), or Mage formats. The latter
can also be downloaded directly from this page. The graphic display contains a variety of
information and links to related databases: (a) The Chain bar. Each chain of the molecule is
displayed as a dark bar labeled with residue numbers. To the left of this bar is a Protein
hyperlink that takes the user to a view of the protein record in Entrez Protein. The bar itself is
also a hyperlink and displays the VAST neighbors of the chain. If a structure contains
nucleotide sequences, they are displayed in the order contained in the PDB record. A
Nucleotide hyperlink to their left takes the user to the appropriate record in Entrez Nucleotide.
(b) The VAST (3D) Domain bar. The colored bars immediately below the Chain bar indicate
the locations of structural domains found by the original MMDB processing of the protein. In
many cases, such a domain contains unconnected sections of the protein sequence, and in such
cases, discontinuous pieces making up the domain will have bars of the same color. To the
The NCBI Handbook

left of the Domain bar is a 3D Domains hyperlink (3d Domains) that launches the 3D Domains
browser in Entrez, where the user can find information about each constituent domain.
Selecting a colored segment displays the VAST Structure Neighbors page for that domain.
(c) The CD bar. Below the VAST Domain bar are rounded, rectangular bars representing
conserved domains found by a CD-Search. The bars identify the best scoring hits; overlapping
hits are shown only if the mutual overlap with hits having better scores is less than 50%. The
CDs hyperlink to the left of the bar displays the CD records in Entrez Domains. Each of the

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

colored bars is also a hyperlink that displays the corresponding CD Summary page configured
to show the multiple alignment of the protein sequence with members of the selected CD.

VAST Structure Neighbors

Although VAST itself is not a database, the VAST results computed for each MMDB record
are stored with this record and are summarized on a separate page for the whole polypeptide
chain as well as for each 3D domain found in the protein (Figure 3). These pages can be accessed
most easily by clicking on either the chain bar or the 3D Domain bar in the graphic display of
the Structure Summary page (Figure 2).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

VAST Structure Neighbors page

The NCBI Handbook

The top portion of the page contains identifying information about the 3D Domain, along with
three functional bars. (a) The View bar. This bar allows a user to view a selected alignment
either as a graphic using Cn3D or as a sequence alignment in HTML, text, or mFASTA format.
The user may select which chains to display in the alignment by checking the boxes that appear
to the left of each neighbor in the lower portion of the page. (b) The nr-PDB bar. This bar
allows a user to either display all matching records in MMDB or to limit the displayed domains
to only representatives of the selected nr-PDB set. The user may also select how the matching
domains are sorted in the display and whether the results are shown as graphics or as tabulated
data. (c) The Find bar. This bar allows the user to find specific structural neighbors by entering
their PDB or MMDB identifiers. (d) The lower portion of the page displays a graphical
alignment of the various matching domains. The upper three bars show summary information
about the query sequence: the top bar shows the maximum extent of alignment found on all
the sequences displayed on the current page (users should note that the appearance of this bar,
therefore, depends on which hits are displayed); the middle bar represents the query sequence
itself that served as input for the VAST search; and the lower bar shows any matching CDs
The NCBI Handbook

and is identical to the CD bar on the Structure Summary page. Listed below these three
summary bars are the hits from the VAST search, sorted according to the selection in the nr-
PDB bar. Aligned regions are shown in red, with gaps indicating unaligned regions. To the
left of each domain accession is a check box that can be used to select any combination of
domains to be displayed either on this page or using Cn3D. Moreover, each of the bars in the
display is itself a link, and placing the mouse pointer over any bar reveals both the extent of
the alignment by residue number and the data linked to the bar.

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

nr-PDB
The non-redundant PDB database (nr-PDB) is a collection of four sets of sequence-dissimilar
cluster PDB polypeptide chains assembled by NCBI Structure staff. The four sets differ only
in their respective levels of non-redundancy. The staff assembles each set by comparing all the
chains available from PDB with each other using the BLAST algorithm. The chains are then
clustered into groups of similar sequence using a single-linkage clustering procedure. Chains
within a sequence-similar group are automatically ranked according to the quality of their
structural data. Details of the measures used to determine structure precision and completeness
and the methodology of assembling the nr-PDB clusters can be found on the nr-PDB Web
page.

Content of the Conserved Domain Database (CDD)

What Is a Conserved Domain (CD)?
The NCBI Handbook

CDs are recurring units in polypeptide chains (sequence and structure motifs), the extents of
which can be determined by comparative analysis. Molecular evolution uses such domains as
building blocks and these may be recombined in different arrangements to make different
proteins with different functions. The CDD contains sequence alignments that define the
features that are conserved within each domain family. Therefore, the CDD serves as a
classification resource that groups proteins based on the presence of these predefined domains.
CDD entries often name the domain family and describe the role of conserved residues in
binding or catalysis. Conserved domains are displayed in MMDB Structure summaries and
link to a sequence alignment showing other proteins in which the domain is conserved, which
may provide clues on protein function.

Sources of Primary Data

The collections of domain alignments in the CDD are imported either from two databases
outside of the NCBI, named Pfam (8) and SMART (9); from the NCBI COB database; from
another NCBI collection named LOAD; and from a database curated by the CDD staff. The
The NCBI Handbook

first task is to identify the underlying sequences in each collection and then link these sequences
to the corresponding ones in Entrez. If the CDD staff cannot find the Accession numbers for
the sequences in the records from the source databases, they locate appropriate sequences using
BLAST. Particular attention is paid to any resulting match that is linked to a structure record
in MMDB, and the staff substitute alignment rows with such sequences whenever possible.
After the staff imports a collection, they then choose a sequence that best represents the family.
Whenever possible, the staff chooses a representative that has a structure record in MMDB.

The Position-specific Score Matrix (PSSM)

Once imported and constructed, each domain alignment in CDD is used to calculate a model
sequence, called a consensus sequence, for each CD. The consensus sequence lists the most
frequently found residue in each position in the alignment; however, for a sequence position
to be included in the consensus sequence, it must be present in at least 50% of the aligned
sequences. Aligned columns covered by the consensus sequence are then used to calculate a
PSSM, which memorizes the degree to which particular residues are conserved at each position
The NCBI Handbook

in the sequence. Once calculated, the PSSM is stored with the alignment and becomes part of
the CDD. The RPS-BLAST tool locates CDs within a query sequence by searching against
this database of PSSMs.

Reverse Position-specific BLAST (RPS-BLAST)

RPS-BLAST (Chapter 16) is a variant of the popular Position-specific Iterated BLAST (PSI-
BLAST) program. PSI-BLAST finds sequences similar to the query and uses the resulting

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

alignments to build a PSSM for the query. With this PSSM the database is scanned again to
draw in more hits and further refine the scoring model. RPS-BLAST uses a query sequence to
search a database of precalculated PSSMs and report significant hits in a single pass. The role
of the PSSM has changed from “query” to “subject”; hence, the term “reverse” in RPS-BLAST.
RPS-BLAST is the search tool used in the CD-Search service.

The CD Summary
Analogous to the Structure Summary page, the CD Summary page displays the available
information about a given CD and offers various links for either viewing the CD alignment or
initiating further searches (Figure 4). The CD Summary page can be retrieved by selecting the
CD name on any page.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

CD summary page
The top of the page serves as a header and reports a variety of identifying information, including
The NCBI Handbook

the name and description of the CD, other related CDs with links to their summary pages, as
well as the source database, status, and creation date of the CD. A taxonomic node link
(Taxa:) launches the Taxonomy Browser, whereas a Proteins link (Proteins:) uses CDART to
show other proteins that contain the CD. Below the header is the interface for viewing the CD
alignment, which can be done either graphically with Cn3D (if the CD contains a sequence
with structural data) or in HTML, text, or mFASTA format. It is also possible to view a selected
number of the top-listed sequences, sequences from the most diverse members, or sequences
most similar to the query. In addition, users may now select sequences with the NCBI
Taxonomy Common Tree tool. The lower portion of the page contains the alignment itself.
Members with a structural record in MMDB are listed first, and the identifier of each sequence
links to the corresponding record.

CD Records Curated at NCBI

In 2002, NCBI released the first group of curated CD records, a new and expanding set of
annotated protein multiple sequence alignments and corresponding structure alignments. These
The NCBI Handbook

new records have Accession numbers beginning with “cd” and have been added to the default
CD-Search database. Most curated CD records are based on existing family descriptions from
SMART and Pfam, but the alignments may have been revised extensively by quantitatively
using three-dimensional structures and by re-examining the domain extent. In addition, CDD
curators annotate conserved functional residues, ligands, and co-factors contained within the
structures. They also record evidence for these sites as pointers to relevant literature or to three-
dimensional structures exemplifying their properties. These annotations may be viewed using

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

Cn3D and thus provide a direct way of visualizing functional properties of a protein domain
in the context of its three-dimensional structure. (See Box 3 and Figure 7.)

The Distinction between 3D Domains and CDs

The term “domain” refers in general to a distinct functional and/or structural unit of a protein.
Each polypeptide chain in MMDB is analyzed for the presence of two classes of domains, and
it is important for users to understand the difference between them. One class, called 3D
Domains, is based solely on similar, compact substructures, whereas the second class, called
Conserved Domains (CDs), is based solely on conserved sequence motifs. These two
classifications often agree, because the compact substructures within a protein often correspond
to domains joined by recombination in the evolutionary history of a protein. Note that CD links
can be identified even when no 3D structures within a family are known. Moreover, 3D Domain
links may also indicate relationships either to structures not included in CDD entries or to
structures so distantly related that no significant similarity can be found by sequence
The NCBI Handbook

comparisons.

Finding and Viewing Structures

For an example query on finding and viewing structures, see Box 2.

Box 2
Example query: finding and viewing structural data of a protein
Finding the Structure of a Protein
Suppose that we are interested in the biosynthesis of aminocyclopropanes and would like
to find structural information on important active site residues in any available
aminocyclopropane synthases. To begin, we would go to the Structure main page and enter
“aminocyclopropane synthase” in the Search box. Pressing Enter displays a short list of
structures, one of which is 1B8G, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase. Perhaps
we would like to know the species from which this protein was derived. Selecting the
The NCBI Handbook

Taxonomy link to the right shows that this protein was derived from Malux x domestica,
or the common apple tree. Going back to the Entrez results page and selecting the PDB code
(1B8G) opens the Structure Summary page for this record. The species is again displayed
on this page, along with a link to the Journal of Molecular Biology article describing how
the structure was determined. We immediately see from this page that this protein appears
as a dimer in the structure, with each chain having three 3D domains, as identified by VAST.
In addition, CD-Search has identified an “aminotran_1_2” CD in each chain. Now we are
ready to view the 3D structure.
Viewing the 3D Structure
Once we have found the Structure Summary page, viewing the 3D structure is
straightforward. To view the structure in Cn3D, we simply select the View 3D Structure
button. The default view is to show helices in green, strands in brown, and loops in blue.
This color scheme is also reflected in the Sequence/Alignment Viewer.
Locating an Active Site
The NCBI Handbook

Upon inspecting the structure, we immediately notice that a small molecule is bound to the
protein, likely at the active site of the enzyme. How do we find out what that molecule is?
One easy way is to return to the Structure Summary page and select the link to the PDB
code, which takes us to the PDB Structure Explorer page for 1B8G. Quickly, we see that
pyridoxal-5′-phosphate (PLP) is a HET group, or heterogen, in the structure. Our interest
piqued, we would now like to know more about the structural domain containing the active

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

site. Returning to Cn3D, we manipulate the structure so that PLP is easily visible and then
use the mouse to double-click on any PLP atom. The molecule becomes selected and turns
yellow. Now from the Show/Hide menu, we choose Select by distance and Residues
only and enter 5 Angstroms for a search radius. Scanning the Sequence/Alignment Viewer,
we see that seven residues are now highlighted: 117-119, 230, 268, 270, and 279. Glancing
at the 3D Domain display in the Structure Summary page, we note that all of these residues
lie in domain 3. We now focus our attention on this domain.
Viewing Structure Neighbors of a 3D Domain
Given that this enzyme is a dimer, we arbitrarily choose domain 3 in chain A, the accession
of which is thus 1B8GA3. By clicking on the 3D Domain bar at a point within domain 3,
we are taken to the VAST Structure Neighbors page for this domain, where we find nearly
200 structure neighbors.
Restricting the Search by Taxonomy
The NCBI Handbook

Perhaps we would now like to identify some of the most evolutionarily distant structure
neighbors of domain 1B8GA3 as a means of finding conserved residues that may be
associated with its binding and/or catalytic function. One powerful way of doing this is to
choose structure neighbors from phylogenetically distant organisms. We therefore need to
combine our present search with a Taxonomy search. Given that 1B8G is derived from the
superkingdom Eukaryota, we would like to find structure neighbors in other superkingdom
taxa, such as Eubacteria and Archaea. Returning to the Structure Summary page, select the
3D Domains link in the graphic display to open the list of 3D Domains in Entrez. Finding
1B8GA3 in the list, selecting the Related 3D Domains link shows a list of all the structure
neighbors of this domain. From this page, we select Preview/Index, which shows our recent
queries. Suppose our set of related 3D Domains is #5. We then perform two searches:

1. #5 AND “Archaea”[Organism]
2. #5 AND “Eubacteria”[Organism]
The NCBI Handbook

Looking at the Archaea results, we find among them 1DJUA3, a domain from an aromatic
aminotransferase from Pyrococcus horikoshii. Concerning the Eubacteria results, we find
among the several hundred matching domains 3TATA2, a tyrosine aminotransferase from
Escherichia coli.
Viewing a 3D Superposition of Active Sites
Returning to the VAST Structure Neighbors page for 1B8GA3, we want to select 1DJUA3
and 3TATA2 to display in a structural alignment. One way to do this is to enter these two
Accession numbers in the Find box and press Find. We now see only these two neighbors,
and we can select View 3D Structure to launch Cn3D.
Cn3D again displays the aligned residues in red, and we can highlight these further by
selecting Show aligned residues from the Show/Hide menu. The excellent agreement
between both the active site structures and the conformations of the bound ligands is readily
apparent. Furthermore, by selecting Style/Coloring Shortcuts/Sequence Conservation/
The NCBI Handbook

Variety, we can easily see that the most highly conserved residues are concentrated near
the binding site (Figure 6).

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

VAST structural alignment of 1B8GA3, 3TATA2, and 1DJUA3

The backbone atoms of the aligned residues of the three structures are shown colored according
to their sequence conservation of each position in the alignment. Highly conserved positions
are colored more red, whereas poorly conserved positions are colored more blue. The bound
pyridoxal phosphate ligands are yellow.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

• To determine the overall shape and size of a protein
The NCBI Handbook

• To locate a residue of interest in the overall structure

• To locate residues in close proximity to a residue of interest
• To develop or test chemical hypotheses regarding an enzyme mechanism
• To locate or predict possible binding sites of a ligand
• To interpret mutation studies

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

• To find areas of positive or negative charge on the protein surface

• To locate particularly hydrophobic or hydrophilic regions of a protein
• To infer the 3D structure and related properties of a protein with unknown structure
from the structure of a homologous protein
• To study evolutionary processes at the level of molecular structure
• To study the function of a protein
• To study the molecular basis of disease and design novel treatments

How to Begin
The first step to any structural analysis at NCBI is to find the structure records for the protein
of interest or for proteins similar to it. One may search MMDB directly by entering search
terms such as PDB code, protein name, author, or journal in the Entrez Structure Search box
on the Structure homepage. Alternative points of entry are shown below.
The NCBI Handbook

By using the full array of Entrez search tools, the resulting list of MMDB records can be honed,
ideally, to a workable list from which a record can be selected. Users should note that multiple
records may exist for a given protein, reflecting different experimental techniques, conditions,
and the presence or absence of various ligands or metal ions. Records may also contain different
fragments of the full-length molecule. In addition, many structures of mutant proteins are also
available. The PDB record for a given structure generally contains some description of the
experimental conditions under which the structure was determined, and this file can be accessed
by selecting the PDB code link at the top of the Structure Summary page.

Alternative Points of Entry

Structure Summary pages can also be found from the following NCBI databases and tools:
• Select the Structure links to the right of any Entrez record found; records with Structure
links can also be located by choosing Structure links from the Display pull-down
The NCBI Handbook

menu.
• Select the Related Sequences link to the right of an Entrez record to find proteins
related by sequence similarity and then select Structure links in the Display pull-
down menu.
• Choose the PDB database from a blastp (protein-protein BLAST) search; only
sequences with structure records will be retrieved by BLAST. The Related
Structures link provides 3D views in Cn3D.
• Select the 3D Structures button on any BLink report to show those BLAST hits for
which structural data are available.
• From the results of any protein BLAST search, click on a red 'S' linkout to view the
sequence alignment with a structure record.

Viewing 3D Structures
3D Domains
The NCBI Handbook

The 3D domains of a protein are displayed on the Structure Summary page. It is useful to know
how many 3D domains a protein contains and whether they are continuous in sequence when
viewing the full 3D structure of the molecule.

Secondary Structure
Knowing the secondary structure of a protein can also be a useful prelude to viewing the 3D
structure of the molecule. The secondary structure can be viewed easily by first selecting the

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

Protein link to the left of the desired chain in the graphic display. Finding oneself in Entrez
Protein, selecting Graphics in the Display pull-down menu presents secondary structure
diagrams for the molecule.

Full Protein Structures

Cn3D is a software package for displaying 3D structures of proteins. Once it has been
installed and the Internet browser has been configured correctly, simply selecting the View 3D
Structure button on a Structure Summary page launches the application. Once the structure
is loaded, a user can manipulate and annotate it using an array of options as described in the
Cn3D Tutorial. By default, Cn3D colors the structure according to the secondary structure
elements. However, another useful view is to color the protein by domain (see Style menu
options), using the same color scheme as is shown in the graphic display on the Structure
Summary page. These color changes also affect the residues displayed in the Sequence/
Alignment Viewer, allowing the identification of domain or secondary structure elements in
The NCBI Handbook

the primary sequence. In addition to Cn3D, users can also display 3D structures with RasMol
or Mage. Structures can also be saved locally as an ASN.1, PDB, or Mage file (depending on
the choice of structure viewer) for later display.

Finding and Viewing Structure Neighbors

For an example query on finding and viewing structure neighbors, see Box 2.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

• To determine structurally conserved regions in a protein family
• To locate the structural equivalent of a residue of interest in another related protein
• To gain insights into the allowable structural variability in a particular protein family
• To develop or test chemical hypotheses regarding an enzyme mechanism
• To predict possible binding sites of a ligand from the location of a binding site in a
The NCBI Handbook

related protein
• To identify sites where conformational changes are concentrated
• To interpret mutation studies
• To find areas of conserved positive or negative charge on the protein surface
• To locate conserved hydrophobic or hydrophilic regions of a protein
• To identify evolutionary relationships across protein families
• To identify functionally equivalent proteins with little or no sequence conservation

How to Begin
The Vector Alignment Search Tool (VAST) is used to calculate similar structures on each
protein contained in the MMDB. The graphic display on each Structure Summary page (Figure
2) links directly to the relevant VAST results for both whole proteins and 3D domains:
• The 3D Domains link transfers the user to Entrez 3D Domains, showing a list of the
The NCBI Handbook

VAST neighbors.
• Selecting the chain bar displays the VAST Structure Neighbors page for the entire
chain.
• Selecting a 3D Domain bar displays the VAST Structure Neighbors page for the
selected domain.

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

Alternative Points of Entry

• From any Entrez search, select Related 3D Domains to the right of any record found
to view the Vast Structure Neighbors page.

Viewing a 2D Alignment of Structure Neighbors

A graphic 2D HTML alignment of VAST neighbors can be viewed as follows:
• On the lower portion of the VAST Structure Neighbors page (Figure 3), select the
desired neighbors to view by checking the boxes to their left.
• On the View/Save bar, configure the pull-down menus to the right of the View
Alignment button.
• Select View Alignment.

Viewing a 3D Alignment of Structure Neighbors

The NCBI Handbook

Alignments of VAST structure neighbors can be viewed as a 3D image using Cn3D.

• On the lower portion of the VAST Structure Neighbors page (Figure 3), select the
desired neighbors to view by checking the boxes to their left.
• On the View/Save bar, configure the pull-down menus to the right of the View 3D
Structure button.
• Select View 3D Structure.
Cn3D automatically launches and displays the aligned structures. Each displayed chain has a
unique color; however, the portions of the structures involved in the alignment are shown in
red. These same colors are also reflected in the Sequence/Alignment Viewer. Among the many
viewing options provided by Cn3D, of particular use is the Show/Hide menu that allows only
the aligned residues to be viewed, only the aligned domains, or all residues of each chain.

Finding and Viewing Conserved Domains

The NCBI Handbook

For an example query on finding and viewing conserved domains, see Box 3.

Box 3
Example query: finding and viewing CDs in a protein
Finding CDs in a Protein
Suppose that we are interested in topoisomerase enzymes and would like to find human
topoisomerases that most closely resemble those found in eubacteria and thus may share a
common ancestor. Further suppose that through a colleague, we are aware of a recent and
particularly interesting crystal structure of a topoisomerase from Escherichia coli with PDB
code 1I7D. How can we identify the conserved functional domains in this protein and then
find human proteins with the same domains? From the Structure main page, we enter the
PDB code 1I7D in the Structure Summary search box and quickly find the Structure
Summary page for this record. We see that in this crystal structure, the protein is complexed
with a single-stranded oligonucleotide. We also see that the protein has five 3D Domains.
The NCBI Handbook

Two CDs align to the sequence as well, and they overlap with one another at the N-terminus
of the protein in the region corresponding to the first 3D domain.
Analyzing CDs Found in a Protein
The Struture summary page displays only the CDs that give the best match to the protein
sequence. To see all of the matching CDs, we can easily perform a full CD-Search. Select
the Protein link to the left of the graphic to reveal the flatfile for the record. Then follow

The Databases
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

the Domains link in the Link menu on the right to view the results of the CD-Search. Select
Show Details to see all CDs matching the query sequence. We find that nine CDs match
this sequence, and that the statistics of each match are shown below the alignment graphic.
The CD with the best hit is TopA from the COG database, and it is further clear that this
domain consists of two smaller domains: TOPRIM (alignments from Pfam, SMART, and
curated CD) and a topoisomerase domain (alignments from Pfam and curated CD). We can
learn more about these CDs by studying the pairwise alignments at the bottom of the page
and by studying their CD Summary pages, reached by selecting the links to their left.
Finding Other Proteins with Similar Domain Architecture
We now would like to find human proteins that have these same CDs. To perform a CDART
search, simply select the Show Domain Relatives button. To limit these results to human
proteins, we select the Subset by Taxonomy button. A taxonomic tree is then displayed,
and we next check the box for Mammal, the lowest taxa including Homo sapiens. Selecting
Choose then displays a Common Tree, and by clicking on the appropriate “scissor” icons,
The NCBI Handbook

we can cut away all branches except the one leading to H. sapiens. We can execute this
taxonomic restriction by selecting Go back, and we now find a much shorter list of CDART
results. In the most similar group, we find two members, one of which is NP_004609.
Selecting the more> link for this record shows the CD-Search results for this human protein.
Interestingly, we find that the topoisomerase is very well conserved, whereas only a portion
of the TOPRIM domain has been retained.
Viewing a CD Alignment with a 3D Structure
We now would like to view the alignment of the topoisomerase in the human protein to
other members of this CD. On the CD-Search page, select the colored bar of this CD to see
a CD-Browser window displaying the alignment. Because this is a curated CD record, we
are able to view functional features of the protein domain on a structural template. The
rightmost menu in the View Alignment bar shows the available features for this domain,
whereas the topmost row in the alignment itself marks the residues involved in this feature
with # symbols. The second row of the alignment is the consensus sequence of the CD
The NCBI Handbook

record, whereas the third row contains the NP_004609 sequence, labeled “query”. At the
bottom of the page, buttons allow Cn3D to be launched with various structural features
highlighted. For example, if we are interested in nucleotide binding site II, Cn3D will launch
with the view depicted in Figure 7, showing the bound nucleotide in orange. Additonal
Cn3D windows not shown in Figure 7 allow one to highlight the binding site residues yellow
as shown, and these highlights also appear in the sequence window. In this figure, the
NP_004609 sequence has been merged into the alignment (bottom row) using tools within
Cn3D, and the result shows that this human protein closely conserves these important
functional residues.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Sequence and structure views of the TOP1Ac conserved domain common to type III bacterial and
eukaryotic DNA topoisomerases
The upper window displays the structure of the domain with the residues colored according to
their sequence conservation, with red indicating high conservation and blue indicating low
conservation. The nucleotide bound at site II is shown as an orange space-filling model, and
the residues involved in this binding site are yellow. The lower window displays the sequence
alignment for the domain with aligned residues shown as colored capital letters. Residues
aligned to three of the binding site residues are highlighted in yellow. The sequence for
NP_004609 (gi 10835218) occupies the bottom row.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

• To locate functional domains within a protein
• To predict the function of a protein whose function is unknown
The NCBI Handbook

• To establish evolutionary relationships across protein families

• To interpret mutation studies
• To predict the structure of a protein of unknown structure

The Databases
 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

How to Begin
Following the Domains link for any protein in Entrez, one can find the conserved domains
within that protein. The CD-Search (or Protein BLAST, with CD-Search option selected) can
be used to find conserved domains (CDs) within a protein. Either the Accession number, gi
number, or the FASTA sequence can be used as a query.

Alternative Points of Entry

Information on the CDs contained within a protein can also be found from these databases and
tools:
• From any Entrez search: select the Domains link to the right of a displayed record.
• From the Structure Summary page of a MMDB record: this page displays the CDs
within each protein chain immediately below the 3D Domain bar in the graphic display.
Selecting the CDs link shows the CD-Search results page.
The NCBI Handbook

• From an Entrez Domains search: choose Domains from the Entrez Search pull-down
menu and enter a search term to retrieve a list of CDs. Clicking on any resulting CD
displays the CD Summary page. To find the location of this CD in an aligned protein,
select the CD link following a protein name in the bottom portion of this page.
• From the CDD page: locate CDs by entering text terms into the search box and proceed
as for an Entrez CD search.
• From a BLink report: select the CDD-Search button to display the CD-Search results
page.
• From the BLAST main page: follow the RPS-BLAST link to load the CD-Search page.

Viewing Conserved Domains

Results from a CD search are displayed as colored bars underneath a sequence ruler. Moving
the mouse over these bars reveals the identity of each domain; domains are also listed in a
format similar to BLAST summary output (Chapter 16). Pairwise alignments between the
The NCBI Handbook

matched region of the target protein and the representative sequence of each domain are shown
below the bar. Red letters indicate residues identical to those in the representative sequence,
whereas blue letters indicate residues with a positive BLOSUM62 score in the BLAST
alignment.

Viewing Multiple Alignments of a Query Protein with Members of a Conserved Domain

These can be displayed by clicking a CD bar within a MMDB Structure Summary page or from
a hyperlinked CD name on a CD-Search results page.

Viewing CD Alignments in the Context of 3D Structure

If members of a CD have MMDB records, one of these records can be viewed as a 3D image
along with the sequence alignment using Cn3D (launched by selecting the pink dot on a CD-
Search results page). As in other alignment views, colored capital letters indicate aligned
residues, allowing the sequence of the protein sequence of interest to be mapped onto the
The NCBI Handbook

available 3D structure.

Finding and Viewing Proteins with Similar Domain Architectures

For an example query on finding and viewing proteins with similar domain architectures, see
Box 3.

The Databases
 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

Why Would I Want to Do This?

• To locate related functional domains in other protein families
• To gain insights into how a given CD is situated within a protein relative to other CDs
• To explore functional links between different CDs
• To predict the function of a protein whose function is unknown
• To establish evolutionary relationships across protein families

How to Begin
Following the Domain Relatives link for any protein in Entrez, one can find other proteins
with similar domain architecture. The Conserved Domain Architecture Retrieval Tool
(CDART) can take an Accession number or the FASTA sequence as a query to find out the
domain architecture of a protein sequence and list other proteins with related domain
architectures.
The NCBI Handbook

Alternative Points of Entry

• From a CD-Search results page, click Show Domain Relatives
• From a CD-Summary page, click the Proteins link
• From an Entrez Domains searc, click the Proteins link in the Links menu

Results of a CDART Search

These are described in Figure 5. The protein “hits”, which have similar domain architectures
to the query sequence, can be further refined by taxonomic group, in which the results can be
limited to selected nodes of the taxonomic tree. Furthermore, search results may be limited to
those that contain only particular conserved domains.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A CDART results page

At the top of the CDART results page in a yellow box, the query sequence CDs are represented
as “beads on a string”. Each CD had a unique color and shape and is labeled both in the display
itself and in a legend located at the bottom of the page. The shapes representing CDs are
hyperlinked to the corresponding CD summary page. The matching proteins to the query are
The NCBI Handbook

listed below the yellow box, ranked according to the number of non-redundant hits to the
domains in the query sequence. Each match is either a single protein, in which case its
Accession number is shown, or is a cluster of very similar proteins, in which case the number
of members in the cluster is shown. Cluster members can be displayed by selecting the logo
to the left of its diagram. Selecting any protein Accession number displays the flatfile for that
protein. To the right of any drawing for a single protein (either on the main results page or after
expanding a protein cluster) is a more> link, which displays the CD-Search results page for
the selected protein so that the sequence alignment, e.g., of a CDART hit with a CD contained
in the original protein of interest, can be examined.

Links Between Structure and Other Resources

Integration with Other NCBI Resources
As illustrated in the sections above, there are numerous connections between the Structure
resources and other databases and tools available at the NCBI. What follows is a listing of
The NCBI Handbook

major tools that support connections.

Entrez
Because Entrez is an integrated database system (Chapter 15), the links attached to each
structure give immediate access to PubMed, Protein, Nucleotide, 3D Domain, CDD, or
Taxonomy records.

The Databases
 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook

BLAST
Although the BLAST service is designed to find matches based solely on sequence, the
sequences of Structure records are included in the BLAST databases, and by selecting the PDB
search database, BLAST searches only the protein sequences provided by MMDB records. A
new Related Structure link provides 3D views for sequences with structure data identified in
a BLAST search.

BLink
The BLink report represents a precomputed list of similar proteins for many proteins (see, for
example, links from Entrez Gene records; Chapter 19). The 3D Structures option on any BLink
report shows the BLAST hits that have 3D structure data in MMDB, whereas the CDD-
Search button displays the CD-Search results page for the query protein.

Microbial Genomes
The NCBI Handbook

A particularly useful interface with the structural databases is provided on the Microbial
Genomes page (10). To the left of the list of genomes are several hyperlinks, two of which
offer users direct access to structural information. The red [D] link displays a listing of every
protein in the genome, each with a link to a BLink page showing the results of a BLAST pdb
search for that protein. The [S] link displays a similar protein list for the selected genome, but
now with a listing of the conserved domains found in each protein by a CD-Search.

Links to Non-NCBI Resources

The Protein Data Bank (PDB)
As stated elsewhere, all records in the MMDB are obtained originally from the Protein Data
Bank (PDB) (6). Links to the original PDB records are located on the Structure Summary page
of each MMDB record. Updates of the MMDB with new PDB records occur once a month.

Pfam and SMART

The NCBI Handbook

The CDD staff imports CD collections from both the Pfam and SMART databases. Links to
the original records in these databases are located on the appropriate CD Summary page. Both
Pfam and SMART are updated several times per year in roughly bimonthly intervals, and the
CDD staff update CDD accordingly.

Saving Output from Database Searches

Exporting Graphics Files from Cn3D
Structures displayed in Cn3D can be exported as a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file from
within Cn3D (the Export PNG command in the File menu). The structure file itself, in the
orientation currently being viewed, can also be saved for later launching in Cn3D.

Saving Individual MMDB Records

Individual MMDB records can be saved/downloaded to a local computer directly from the
Structure Summary page for that record. Save File in the View bar downloads the file in a
The NCBI Handbook

choice of three formats: ASN.1 (select Cn3D); PDB (select RasMol); or Mage (select
Mage).

Saving VAST Alignments

Alignments of VAST neighbors can be saved/downloaded from the VAST Structure Neighbors
page of any MMDB record. By selecting options in the View Alignment pull-down menu, the
alignment data can be saved, formatted as HTML, text, or mFASTA, and then saved.

The Databases
 Page 24
The NCBI Handbook

FTP
MMDB
Users can download the NCBI Structure databases from the NCBI FTP site: ftp://
ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/mmdb. A Readme file contains descriptions of the contents and information
about recent updates. Within the mmdb directory are four subdirectories that contain the
following data:
• mmdbdata: the current MMDB database (NOTE: these files can not be read directly
by Cn3D).
• vastdata: the current set of VAST neighbor annotations to MMDB records
• nrtable: the current non-redundant PDB database
• pdbeast: table listing the taxonomic classification of MMDB records
The NCBI Handbook

CDD
CDD data can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/pub/mmdb/cdd. A Readme file
contains descriptions of the data archives. Users can download the PSSMs for each CD record,
the sequence alignments in mFASTA format, or a text file containing the accessions and
descriptions of all CD records.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Cn3D
• VAST searches
• CDD

References
1. Wang Y, Anderson JB, Chen J, Geer LY, He S, Hurwitz DI, Liebert CA, Madej T, Marchler GH,
The NCBI Handbook

Marchler-Bauer A, Panchenko AR, Shoemaker BA, Song JS, Thiessen PA, Yamashita RA, Bryant
SH. MMDB: Entrez's 3D-structure database. Nucleic Acids Res 2002;30:249–252. [PubMed:
11752307]99072
2. Wang Y, Geer LY, Chappey C, Kans JA, Bryant SH. Cn3D: sequence and structure views for Entrez.
Trends Biochem Sci 2000;25:300–302. [PubMed: 10838572]
3. Madej T, Gibrat J-F, Bryant SH. Threading a database of protein cores. Proteins 1995;23:356–369.
[PubMed: 8710828]
4. Gibrat J-F, Madej T, Bryant SH. Surprising similarities in structure comparison. Curr Opin Struct Biol
1996;6:377–385. [PubMed: 8804824]
5. Marchler-Bauer A, Panchenko AR, Shoemaker BA, Thiessen PA, Geer LY, Bryant SH. CDD: a
database of conserved domain alignments with links to domain three-dimensional structure. Nucleic
Acids Res 2002;30:281–283. [PubMed: 11752315]99109
6. Westbrook J, Feng Z, Jain S, Bhat TN, Thanki N, Ravichandran V, Gilliland GL, Bluhm W, Weissig
H, Greer DS, Bourne PE, Berman HM. The Protein Data Bank: unifying the archive. Nucleic Acids
Res 2002;30:245–248. [PubMed: 11752306]99110
The NCBI Handbook

7. Ohkawa H, Ostell J, Bryant S. MMDB: an ASN.1 specification for macromolecular structure. Proc Int
Conf Intell Syst Mol Biol 1995;3:259–267. [PubMed: 7584445]
8. Bateman A, Birney E, Cerruti L, Durbin R, Etwiller L, Eddy SR, Griffiths-Jones S, Howe KL, Marshall
M, Sonnhammer ELL. The Pfam proteins family database. Nucleic Acids Res 2002;30:276–280.
[PubMed: 11752314]99071
9. Letunic I, Goodstadt L, Dickens NJ, Doerks T, Schultz J, Mott R, Ciccarelli F, Copley RR, Ponting
CP, Bork P. SMART: a Web-based tool for the study of genetically mobile domains. Recent

The Databases
 Page 25
The NCBI Handbook

improvements to the SMART domain-based sequence annotation resource. Nucleic Acids Res
2002;30:242–244. [PubMed: 11752305]99073
10. Wang Y, Bryant S, Tatusov R, Tatusova T. Links from genome proteins to known 3D structures.
Genome Res 2000;10:1643–1647. [PubMed: 11042161]310938
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The Taxonomy Project

[Chapter 4]

Scott Federhen

Summary
The NCBI Taxonomy database is a curated set of names and classifications for all of the organisms
that are represented in GenBank. When new sequences are submitted to GenBank, the submission
is checked for new organism names, which are then classified and added to the Taxonomy database.
The NCBI Handbook

As of April 2003, there were 176,890 total taxa represented.

There are two main tools for viewing the information in the Taxonomy database: the Taxonomy
Browser, and Taxonomy Entrez. Both systems allow searching of the Taxonomy database for names,
and both link to the relevant sequence data. However, the Taxonomy Browser provides a hierarchical
view of the classification (the best display for most casual users interested in exploring our
classification), whereas Entrez Taxonomy provides a uniform indexing, search, and retrieval engine
with a common mechanism for linking between the Taxonomy and other relevant Entrez databases.

Introduction
Organismal taxonomy is a powerful organizing principle in the study of biological systems.
Inheritance, homology by common descent, and the conservation of sequence and structure in
the determination of function are all central ideas in biology that are directly related to the
evolutionary history of any group of organisms. Because of this, taxonomy plays an important
The NCBI Handbook

cross-linking role in many of the NCBI tools and databases.

The NCBI Taxonomy database is a curated set of names and classifications for all of the
organisms that are represented in GenBank. When new sequences are submitted to GenBank,
the submission is checked for new organism names, which are then classified and added to the
taxonomy database. As of April 1, 2003, there were 4,653 families, 26,427 genera, 130,207
species, and 176,890 total taxa represented.

Of the several different ways to build a taxonomy, our group maintains a phylogenetic
taxonomy. In a phylogenetic classification scheme, the structure of the taxonomic tree
approximates the evolutionary relationships among the organisms included in the classification
(the “tree of life”; see Figure 1).
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A phylogenetic classification scheme

If two organisms (A and B) are listed more closely together in the taxonomy than either is to
organism C, the assertion is that C diverged from the lineage leading to A+B earlier in
evolutionary history, and that A and B share a common ancestor that is not in the direct line
of evolutionary descent to species C. For example, the current consensus it that the closest
living relatives of the birds are the crocodiles; therefore, our classification does not include the
familiar taxon Reptilia (turtles, lizards and snakes, and crocodiles), which excludes the birds,
and would break the phylogenetic principle outlined above.

Our classification represents an assimilation of information from many different sources (see
Box 1). Much of the success of the project is attributable to the flood of new molecular data
that has revolutionized our understanding of the phylogeny of many groups, especially of
previous poorly understood groups such as Bacteria, Archea, and Fungi. Users should be aware
that some parts of the classification are better developed than others and that the primary
The NCBI Handbook

systematic and phylogenetic literature is the most reliable information source.

Box 1
History of the Taxonomy Project
By the time the NCBI was created in 1988, the nucleotide sequence databases (GenBank,
EMBL, and DDBJ) each maintained their own taxonomic classifications. All three

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

classifications derived from the one developed at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL)
but had diverged considerably. Furthermore, the protein sequence databases (SWISS-PROT
and PIR) each developed their own taxonomic classifications that were very different from
each other and from the nucleotide database taxonomies. To add to the mix, in 1990 the
NCBI and the NLM initiated a journal-scanning program to capture and annotate sequences
reported in the literature that had not been submitted to any of the sequence databases. We,
of course, began to assign our own taxonomic classifications for these records.
The Taxonomy Project started in 1991, in association with the launch of Entrez (Chapter
15). The goal was to combine the many taxonomies that existed at the time into a single
classification that would span all of the organisms represented in any of the GenBank
sources databases (Chapter 1).
To represent, manipulate, and store versions of each of the different database taxonomies,
we wrote a stand-alone, tree-structured database manager, TaxMan. This also allowed us
to merge the taxonomies into a single composite classification. The resulting hybrid was,
The NCBI Handbook

at first, a bigger mess than any of the pieces had been, but it gave us a starting point that
spanned all of the names in all of the sequence databases. For many years, we cleaned up
and maintained the NCBI Taxonomy database with TaxMan.
After the initial unification and clean-up of the taxonomy for Entrez was complete, Mitch
Sogin organized a workshop to give us advice on the clean-up and recommendations for
the long-term maintenance of the taxonomy. This was held at the NCBI in 1993 and
included: Mitch Sogin (protists), David Hillis (chordates), John Taylor (fungi), S.C. Jong
(fungi), John Gunderson (protists), Russell Chapman (algae), Gary Olsen (bacteria),
Michael Donoghue (plants), Ward Wheeler (invertebrates), Rodney Honeycutt
(invertebrates), Jack Holt (bacteria), Eugene Koonin (viruses), Andrzej Elzanowski (PIR
taxonomy), Lois Blaine (ATCC), and Scott Federhen (NCBI). Many of these attendees went
on to serve as curators for different branches of the classification. In particular, David Hillis,
John Taylor, and Gary Olsen put in long hours to help the project move along.
In 1995, as more demands were made on the Taxonomy database, the system was moved
The NCBI Handbook

to a SyBase relational database (TAXON), originally developed by Tim Clark. Hierarchical

organism indexing was added to the Nucleotide and Protein domains of Entrez, and the
Taxonomy browser made its first appearance on the Web.
In 1997, the EMBL and DDBJ databases agreed to adopt the NCBI taxonomy as the standard
classification for the nucleotide sequence databases. Before that, we would see new
organism names from the EMBL and DDBJ only after their entries were released to the
public, and any corrections (in spelling, or nomenclature, or classification) would have to
be made after the fact. We now receive taxonomy consults on new names from the EMBL
and DDBJ before the release of their entries, just as we do from our own GenBank indexers.
SWISS-PROT has also recently (2001) agreed to use our Taxonomy database and send us
taxonomy consults.

We do not rely on sequence data alone to build our classification, and we do not perform
phylogenetic analysis ourselves as part of the taxonomy project. Most of the organisms in
The NCBI Handbook

GenBank are represented by only a snippet of sequence; therefore, sequence information alone
is not enough to build a robust phylogeny. The vast majority of species are not there at all,
although about 50% of the birds and the mammals are represented. We therefore also rely on
analyses from morphological studies; the challenge of modern systematics is to unify molecular
and morphological data to elucidate the evolutionary history of life on earth.

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Adding to the Taxonomy Database

Currently, more than 100 new species are added to the database daily, and the rate is
accelerating as sequence analysis becomes an ever more common component of systematic
research and the taxonomic description of new species.

Sources of New Names

The EMBL and DDBJ databases, as well as GenBank, now use the NCBI Taxonomy as the
standard classification for nucleotide sequences (see Box 1). Nearly all of the new species
found in the Taxonomy database are via sequences submitted to one of these databases from
species that are not yet represented. In these cases, the NCBI taxonomy group is consulted,
and any problems with the nomenclature and classifications are resolved before the sequence
entries are released to the public. We also receive consults for submissions that are not
identified to the species level (e.g., “Hantavirus” or “Bacillus sp.”) and for anything that looks
confusing, incorrect, or incomplete to the database indexers. All consults include information
The NCBI Handbook

on the problem organism names, source features, and publication titles (if any). The email
addresses for the submitters are also included in case we need to contact them about the
nomenclature, classification, or annotation of their entries.

The number and complexity of organisms in a submission can vary enormously. Many contain
a single new name, others may include 100 species, all from the same familiar genus, whereas
others may include 100 names (only half identified at the species level) from 100 genera (all
of which are new to the Taxonomy database) without any other identifying information at all.

Some new organism names are found by software when the protein sequence databases
(SWISS-PROT, PIR, and the PRF) are added to Entrez; because most of the entries in the
protein databases have been derived from entries in the nucleotide database, this is a small
number. The NCBI structure group may also find new names in the PDB protein structure
database. Finally, because we made the Taxonomy database publicly accessible on the Web,
we have had a steady stream of comments and corrections to our spellings and classification
The NCBI Handbook

from outside users.

More on Submission
We often receive consults on submissions with explicitly new species names that will be
published as part of the description of a new species. These sequence entries (like any other)
may be designated “hold until published” (HUP) and will not be released until the
corresponding journal article has been published. These species names will not appear on any
of our taxonomy Web sites until the corresponding sequence entries have been released.

Occasionally, the same new genus name is proposed simultaneously for different taxa; in one
case, two papers with conflicting new names had been submitted to the same journal, and both
had gone through one round of review and revision without detection of the duplication.
Although these duplications would have been discovered in time, the increasingly common
practice of including some sequence analysis in the description of a new species can lead to
earlier detection of these problems. In many cases, the new species name proposed in the
The NCBI Handbook

submitted manuscript is changed during the editorial review process, and a different name
appears in the publication. Submitters are encouraged to inform us when their new descriptions
have been published, particularly if the proposed names have been changed.

We strongly encourage the submission of strain names for cultured bacteria, algae, and fungi
and for sequences from laboratory animals in biochemical and genetic studies; of cultivar
names for sequences from cultivated plants; and of specimen vouchers (something that
definitively ties the sequence to its source) for sequences from phylogenetic studies. There are

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

many other kinds of useful information that may be contained within the sequence submission,
but these data are the bare minimum necessary to maintain a reliable link between an entry in
the sequence database and the biological source material.

Using the Taxonomy Browser

The Taxonomy Browser (TaxBrowser) provides a hierarchical view of the classification from
any particular place in the taxonomy. This is probably the display of choice for most casual
users (browsers) of the taxonomy who are interested in exploring our classification. The
TaxBrowser displays only the subset of taxa from the taxonomy database that is linked to public
sequence entries. About 15% of the full Taxonomy database is not displayed on the public Web
pages because the names are from sequence entries that have not yet been released.

TaxBrowser is updated continuously. New species will appear on a daily basis as the new
names appear in sequence entries indexed during the daily release cycle of the Entrez databases.
The NCBI Handbook

New taxa in the classification appear in TaxBrowser on an ongoing basis, as sections of the
taxonomy already linked to public sequence entries are revised.

The Hierarchical Display

The browser produces two different kinds of Web pages: (1) hierarchy pages, which present a
familiar indented flatfile view of the taxonomic classification, centered on a particular taxon
in the database; and (2) taxon-specific pages, which summarize all of the information that we
associate with any particular taxonomic entry in the database. For example, “hominidae” as a
search term from the TaxBrowser homepage finds our human family (Figure 2).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
Page 6

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Taxonomy Browser hierarchical display for the family Hominidae

(a) There are four genera listed in this family (Gorilla, Homo, Pan, and Pongo) with six species-
level names (Gorilla gorilla, Homo sapiens, Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Pongo
pygmaeus, and Pongo sp.) and 2 subspecies. Common names are shown in parentheses if they
are available in the Taxonomy database. The lineage above Hominidae is shown in the line at
The NCBI Handbook

the top of the display; selecting the word Lineage will toggle back and forth between the
abbreviated lineage (the display used in GenBank flatfiles) and the full lineage (as it appears
in the Taxonomy database). Selecting any of the taxa above Hominidae (in the lineage) or
below Hominidae (in the hierarchical display) will refocus the browser on that taxon instead
of the Hominidae. Selecting Hominidae itself, however, will display the taxon-specific page
for the Hominidae. (b) The default setting displays three levels of the classification on the
hierarchy pages. To change this, enter a different number in the Display levels box and select
Accept. If any of the check boxes to the right of the Display levels box are selected (i.e.,
Nucleotide, Protein, Structures, ...), the numbers of records in the corresponding Entrez
database that are associated with that taxon will appear as hyperlinks. Selecting a link retrieves
those records.

The Taxon-specific Display

The taxon-specific browser display page shows all of the information that is associated with a
particular taxon in the Taxonomy database and some information collected through links with
The NCBI Handbook

related databases (Figure 3).

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Taxonomy Browser taxon-specific display

The name, taxid, rank, genetic codes, and other names (if any) associated with this taxon are
all listed. The full lineage is shown; selecting the word Lineage toggles between the
abbreviated and full versions. There may also be citation information and comments
hyperlinked to the appropriate sources. The numbers of Entrez database records that link to
this Taxonomy record are displayed and can be retrieved via the hotlinked entry counts.
LinkOut links to external resources appear at the bottom of the page.
The NCBI Handbook

There are two sets of links to Entrez records from the Taxonomy Browser. The "subtree links"
are accumulated up the tree in a hierarchical fashion; for example, there are 16 million
nucleotide records and a half million protein records associated with the Chordata (Figure 3a).
These are all linked into the taxonomy at or below the species leves and can be retrieved en
masse via the subtree hotlink.

"Direct links" will retrieve Entrez records that are linked directly to this particular node in the
taxonomy database. Many of the Entrez domains (e.g., sequences and structures) are linked

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

into the taxonomy at or below the species level; it is a data error when a sequence entry is
directly linked into the taxonomy at a taxon somewhere above the species level. For other
Entrez domains (e.g., literature and phylogenetic sets), this is not the case. A journal article
may talk about several different species but may also refer directly to the phylum Chordata.
We have searched the full text of the articles in the PubMed Central archive with the scientific
names from the taxonomy database. Twenty-seven articles in PubMed Central refer directly
to the phylum Chordata; 9,299 articles are linked into the taxonomy somewhere in the Chordata
subtree. The PopSet domain contains population studies, phylogenetic sets, and alignments.
We have recently changed the way that we index phylogenetic sets in Entrez. The five "Direct
links" at the Chordata will retrieve the phylogenetic sets that explicitly span the Chordata; the
"Subtree links" will also include phylogenetic sets that are completely contained within the
Chordata.

The taxon-specific browser pages now also show the NCBI LinkOut links to external resources.
These include links to a broad range of different kinds of resources and are provided for the
The NCBI Handbook

convenience of our users; the NCBI does not vouch for the content of these resources, although
we do make an effort to ensure that they are of good scientific quality. A complete list of
external resources can be found here. Groups interested in participating in the LinkOut program
should visit the LinkOut homepage.

Search Options
There are several different ways to search for names in the Taxonomy database. If the search
results in a terminal node in our taxonomy, the taxon-specific browser page is displayed; if the
search returns with an internal (non-terminal) node, the hierarchical classification page is
displayed.

Complete Name. By default, TaxBrowser looks for the complete name when a term is typed
into the search box. It looks for a case-insensitive, full-length string match to all of the
nametypes stored in the Taxonomy database. For example, Homo sapiens, Escherichia,
Tetrapoda, and Embryophyta would all retrieve results.
The NCBI Handbook

Names can be duplicated in the Taxonomy database, but the taxonomy browser can only be
focused on a single taxon at any one time. If a complete name search retrieves more than one
entry from the taxonomy, an intermediate name selection screen appears (Figure 4). Each
duplicated name includes a manually curated suffix that differentiates between the duplicated
names.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Examples of search results for duplicated names

Searches for Bacillus (a), Proboscidea (b), Anopheles (c), and reptiles (d) result in the options
shown above. If the duplicated name is not the primary (scientific) name of the node [as in
The NCBI Handbook

(d)], the primary name is given first, followed by the nametype and the duplicated name in
square brackets.

Wild Card. This is a regular expression search, *, with wild cards. It is useful when the correct
spelling of a scientific name is uncertain or to find ambiguous combinations for abbreviated
species names. For example, C* elegans results in a list of 16 species and subspecies (Box 2).
Note: there is still only one H. sapiens.

Box 2
TaxBrowser results from using the wild card search, C* elegans
Cunninghamella elegans
Caenorhabditis elegans
Codonanthe elegans
The NCBI Handbook

Cyclamen coum subsp. elegans

Cestrum elegans
Chaerophyllum elegans
Chalara elegans
Chrysemys scripta elegans

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

Ceuthophilus elegans
Carpolepis elegans
Cylindrocladiella elegans
Coluria elegans
Cymbidium elegans
Coronilla elegans
Gymnothamnion elegans (synonym: Callithamnion elegans)
Centruroides elegans

Token Set. This treats the search string as an unordered set of tokens, each of which must be
found in one of the names associated with a particular node. For example, "sapiens" retrieves:
The NCBI Handbook

Homo sapiens
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

Phonetic Name. This search qualifier can be used when the user has exhausted all other search
options to find the organism of interest. The results using this function can be patchy, however.
For example, “drozofila” and “kaynohrhabdietees” retrieve respectable results; however,
“seenohrabdietees” and “eshereesheeya” are not found.

Taxonomy ID. This allows searching by the numerical unique identifier (taxid) of the NCBI
Taxonomy database, e.g., 9606 or 666.

How to Link to the TaxBrowser

There is a help page that describes how to make hyperlinks to the Taxonomy Browser pages.
The NCBI Handbook

The Taxonomy Database: TAXON

The NCBI Taxonomy database is stored as a SyBase relational database, called TAXON. The
NCBI taxonomy group maintains the database with a customized software tool, the Taxonomy
Editor. Each entry in the database is a “taxon”, also referred to as a “node” in the database.
The “root node” (taxid1) is at the top of the hierarchy. The path from the root node to any other
particular taxon in the database is called its “lineage”; the collection of all of the nodes beneath
any particular taxon is called its “subtree”. Each node in the database may be associated with
several names, of several different nametypes. For indexing and retrieval purposes, the
nametypes are essentially equivalent.

The Taxonomy database is populated with species names that have appeared in a sequence
record from one of the nucleotide or protein databases. If a name has ever appeared in a
sequence record at any time (even if it is not found in the current version of the record), we try
to keep it in the Taxonomy database for tracking purposes (as a synonym, a misspelling, or
The NCBI Handbook

other nametype), unless there are good reasons for removing it completely (for example, if it
might cause a future submission to map to the wrong place in the taxonomy).

Taxids
Each taxon in the database has a unique identifier, its taxid. Taxids are assigned sequentially.
When a taxon is deleted, its taxid disappears and is not reassigned (Table 1; see the FTP for a
list of deleted taxids). When one taxon is merged with another taxon (e.g., if the names were

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

determined to be synonyms or one was a misspelling), the taxid of the node that has disappeared
is listed as a “secondary taxid” to the taxid of the node that remains (see the merged taxid file
on the FTP site). In either case, the taxid that has disappeared will never be assigned to a new
entry in the database.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Files on the taxonomy FTP site
File Uncompresses to Description

taxdump.tar.Za readme.txt A terse description of the dmp files

nodes.dmp Structure of the database; lists each taxid with its parent taxid, rank, and other values associated
with each node (genetic codes, etc.)

names.dmp Lists all the names associated with each taxid

delnodes.dmp Deleted taxid list

merged.dmp Merged nodes file

division.dmp GenBank division files

gencode.dmp Genetic codes files

gc.prt Print version of genetic codes

The NCBI Handbook

gi_taxid_nucl.dmp.gz gi_taxid_nucl.dmp A list of gi_taxid pairs for every live gi-identified sequence in the nucleotide sequence database

gi_taxid_prot.dmp.gz gi_taxid_prot.dmp A list of gi_taxid pairs for every live gi-identified sequence in the protein sequence database

gi_taxid_nucl_diff.dmp gi_taxid_nucl_diff List of differences between latest gi_taxid_nucl and previous listing

gi_taxid_prot_diff.dmp gi_taxid_prot_diff List of differences between latest gi_taxid_prot and previous listing
a
For non-UNIX users, the file taxdmp.zip includes the same (zip compressed) data.

Nomenclature Issues
TAXON Nametypes
There are many possible types of names that can be associated with an organism taxid in
TAXON. To track and display the names correctly, the various names associated with a taxid
are tagged with a nametype, for example “scientific name”, “synonym”, or “common name”.
Each taxid must have one (and only one) scientific name but may have zero or many other
names (for example, several synonyms, several common names, along with only one
The NCBI Handbook

“GenBank common name”).

When sequences are submitted to GenBank, usually only a scientific name is included; most
other names are added by NCBI taxonomists at the time of submission or later, when further
information is discovered. For a complete description of each nametype used in TAXON, see
Appendix 1.

Classes of TAXON Scientific Names

Scientific names, the only required nametype for a taxid, can be further qualified into different
classes. Not all “scientific names” that accompany sequence submissions are true Linnaean
Latin binomial names; if the taxon is not identified to the species level, it is not possible to
assign a binomial name to it. For indexing and retrieval purposes, TAXON needs to know
whether the scientific name is a Latin binomial name, or otherwise. A full listing of the classes
of TAXON scientific names can be viewed in Appendix 2.
The NCBI Handbook

Duplicated Names
The treatment of duplicated names was discussed briefly in the section on the Taxonomy
browser. For our purposes, there are four main classes of duplicated scientific names: (1) real
duplicate names, (2) structural duplicates, (3) polyphyletic genera, and (4) other duplicate
names.

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

Real Duplicate Names

There are several main codes of nomenclature for living organisms: the Zoological Code
(International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, ICZN; for animals), the Botanical Code
(International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, ICBN; for plants), the Bacteriological Code
(International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria, ICNB; for prokaryotes), and the Viral Code
(International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature, ICVCN; for viruses). Within
each code, names are required to be unique. When duplicate names are discovered within a
code, one of them is changed (generally, the newer duplicate name). However, the codes are
complex, and not all names are subject to these restrictions. For example, Polyphaga is both a
genus of cockroaches and a suborder of beetles, and the damselfly genus Lestoidea is listed
within the superfamily Lestoidea.

There is no real effort to make the scientific names of taxa unique among Codes, and among
the relatively small set of names represented in the NCBI taxonomy database (20,000 genera),
there are approximately 200 duplicate names (or about 1%), mostly at the genus level.
The NCBI Handbook

Early in 2002, the first duplicate species name was recorded in the Taxonomy database. Agathis
montana is both a wasp and a conifer. In this case, we have used the full species names (with
authorities) to provide unambiguous scientific names for the sequence entries. (The conifer is
listed as Agathis montana de Laub; the wasp, Agathis montana Shest).

Structural Duplicates
In the Zoological and Bacteriological Codes, the subgenus that includes the type species is
required to have the same name as the genus. This is a systematic source of duplicate names.
For these duplicates, we use the associated rank in the unique name, e.g., Drosophila <genus>
and Drosophila <subgenus>. Duplicated genera/subgenera also occur in the Botanical Codes,
e.g. Pinus <genus> and Pinus <subgenus>.

Polyphyletic Genera
The NCBI Handbook

Certain genera, especially among the asexual forms of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, are
polyphyletic, i.e., they do not share a common ancestor. Pending taxonomic revisions that will
transfer species assigned to “form” genera such as Cryptococcus to more natural genera, we
have chosen to duplicate such polyphyletic genera in different branches of the Taxonomy
database. This will maintain a phylogenetic classification and ensure that all species assigned
to a polyphyletic genus can be retrieved when searching on the genus. Therefore, for example,
the basidiomycete genus Sporobolomyces is represented in three different branches of the
Basidiomycota: Sporobolomyces <Sporidiobolaceae>, Sporobolomyces
<Agaricostilbomycetidae>, and Sporobolomyces <Erythrobasidium clade>.

Other Duplicate Names

We list many duplicate names in other nametypes (apart from our preferred “scientific name”
for each taxon). Most of these are included for retrieval purposes, common names or the names
of familiar paraphyletic taxa that we have not included in our classification, e.g. Osteichthyes,
Coelenterata, and reptiles.
The NCBI Handbook

Other TAXON Data Types

Aside from names, there are several optional types of information that may be associated with
a taxid. These are (1) rank, such as species, genus or family; (2) genetic code, for translating
proteins; (3) GenBank division; (4) literature citations; and (5) abbreviated lineage, for display
in GenBank flat files. For more details on these data types, see Appendix 3.

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

Taxonomy in Entrez: A Quick Tour

The TAXON database is a node within the Entrez integrated retrieval system (Chapter 15) that
provides an important organizing principle for other Entrez databases. Taxonomy provides an
alternative view of TAXON to that of TaxBrowser. Entrez adds some very powerful
capabilities (for example, Boolean queries, search history, and both internal and external links)
to TAXON, but in many ways it is an unnatural way to represent such hierarchical data in
Taxonomy. (TaxBrowser is the way to view the taxonomy hierarchically.)

Taxonomy was the first Entrez database to have an internal hierarchical structure. Because
Entrez deals with unordered sets of objects in a given domain, an alternative way to represent
these hierarchical relationships in Entrez was required (see the section Hierarchy Fields,
below).

The main focus of the Entrez Taxonomy homepage is the search bar but also worth noting are
The NCBI Handbook

the Help and TaxBrowser hotlinks that lead to Entrez generic help documentation and the
Taxonomy browser, respectively.

The default Entrez search is case insensitive and can be for any of the names that can be found
in the Taxonomy database. Thus, any of the following search terms, Homo sapiens, homo
sapiens, human, or Man, will retrieve the node for Homo sapiens.

As for other Entrez databases, Taxonomy supports Boolean searching, a History function, and
searches limited by field. The Taxonomy fields can be browsed under Preview/Index, some
are specific to Taxonomy (such as Lineage or Rank), and others are found in all Entrez
databases (such as Entrez Date).

Each search result, listed in document summary (DocSum) format, may have several links
associated with it. For example, for the search result Homo sapiens, the Nucleotide link will
retrieve all the human sequences from the nucleotide databases, and the Genome link will
retrieve the human genome from the Genomes database.
The NCBI Handbook

Search Tips and Tricks

A helpful list follows:

1. A search for Hominidae retrieves a single, hyperlinked entry. Selecting the link shows the
structure of the taxon. On the other hand, a search for Hominidae[subtree] will retrieve a
nonhierarchical list of all of the taxa listed within the Hominidae.

2. A search for species[rank] yields a list of all species in the Taxonomy database (108,020 in
May 2002).

3. Find the Taxonomy update frequency by selecting Entrez Date from the pull-down menu
under Preview/Index, typing “2002/02” in the box and selecting Index. The result:
The NCBI Handbook

2002/01 (5176)
2002/01/03 (478)
2002/01/08 (2)
2002/01/10 (2260)
2002/01/14 (7)
2002/01/16 (239)

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

shows that in January 2002, 5,176 new taxa were added, the bulk of which appeared in Entrez
for the first time on January 10, 2002. These taxa can be retrieved by selecting 2002/01/10,
then selecting the AND button above the window, followed by Go.

4. An overview of the distribution of taxa in the DocSum list can be seen if Summary is
changed to Common Tree, followed by selecting Display.

5. To filter out less interesting names from a DocSum list, add some terms to the query, e.g.,
2002/01/10[date] NOT uncultured[prop] NOT unspecified[prop].

Displays in Taxonomy Entrez

There are a variety of choices regarding how search results can be displayed in Taxonomy
Entrez.

Summary. This is the default display view. There are as many as four pieces of information
The NCBI Handbook

in this display, if they are all present in the Taxonomy database: (1) scientific name of the
taxon; (2) common name, if one is available; (3) taxonomic rank, if one is assigned; and (4)
BLAST name, inherited from the taxonomy, e.g., Homo sapiens (human), species, mammals.

Brief. Shows only the scientific names of the taxa. This view can be used to download lists of
species names from Entrez.

Tax ID List. Shows only the taxids of the taxa. This view can be used to download taxid lists
from Entrez.

Info. Shows a summary of most of the information associated with each taxon in the Taxonomy
database (similar to the TaxBrowser taxon-specific display; Figure 3). This can be downloaded
as a text file; an XML representation of these data is under development.

Common Tree. A special display that shows a skeleton view of the relationships among the
selected set of taxa and is described in the section below.
The NCBI Handbook

LinkOut. Displays a list of the linkout links (if any) for each of the selected sets of taxa (see
Chapter 17).

Entrez Links. The remaining views follow Entrez links from the selected set of taxa to the
other Entrez databases (Nucleotide, Protein, Genome, etc.) The Display view allows all links
for a whole set of taxa to be viewed at once.

The Common Tree Viewer

The Common Tree view shows an abbreviated view of the taxonomic hierarchy and is designed
to highlight the relationships between a selected set of organisms. Figure 5 shows the Common
Tree view for a familiar set of model organisms.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Common Tree view for some model organisms

The ten species shown in bold are the ones that were selected as input to the Common Tree
display. The other taxa displayed show the taxonomic relationships between the selected taxa.
For example, Eutheria is included because it is the smallest taxonomic group in our
classification that includes both Homo sapiens and Mus musculus. A “+” box in the tree
indicates that part of the taxonomic classification has been suppressed in this abbreviated view;
selecting the “+” will fill in the missing lineage (and change the “+” to a “-”). The Expand
All and Collapse All buttons at the top of the display will do this globally. The Search for
The NCBI Handbook

box at the top of the display can be used to add taxa to the Common Tree display; taxa can be
removed using the list at the bottom of the page.

If there are more than few dozen taxa selected for the common tree view, the display becomes
visually complex and generally less useful. When a large list of taxa is sent to the Common
Tree display, a summary screen is displayed first. For example, we currently list 727 families
in the Viridiplantae (plants and green algae) (Figure 6).

The Databases
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Common Tree summary page for the plants and green algae
The taxa are aggregated at the predetermined set of nodes in the Taxonomy database that have
been assigned “BLAST names”. This serves an informal, very abbreviated, vernacular
classification that gives a convenient overview. The BLAST names will often not provide
complete coverage for all species at all levels in the tree. Here, not all of our flowering
plants are flagged as eudicots or monocots. The Common Tree summary display recognizes
cases such as these and lists the remaining taxa as other flowering plants. The full Common
Tree for some or all of the taxa can be seen by selecting the check box next to monocots on the
The NCBI Handbook

summary page and then Choose. This will display the full Common Tree view for 108 families
of monocots.

There are several formatting options for saving the common tree display to a text file: text tree,
phylip tree, and taxid list.

Hyperlinks to a common tree display can be made in two ways: (1) by specifying the common
tree view in an Entrez query URL (for example, this link, which displays the common tree

The Databases
 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook

view of all of the taxonomy nodes with LinkOut links to the Butterfly Net International Web
site); or (2) by providing a list of taxids directly to the common tree cgi function (for example,
this link, which will display a live version of Figure 5).

Using Batch Taxonomy Entrez

The Batch Entrez page allows you to upload a file of taxids or taxon names into Taxonomy
Entrez.

Indexing Taxonomy in Entrez

As for any Entrez database, the contents are indexed by creating term lists for each field of
each database record (or taxid). For TAXON, the types of fields include name fields, hierarchy
fields, inherited fields, and generic Entrez fields.

Name Fields
The NCBI Handbook

There are five different index fields for names in Taxonomy Entrez.

All names, [name] in an Entrez search – this is the default search field in Taxonomy Entrez.
This is different from most Entrez databases, where the default search field is the composite
[All Fields].

Scientific name, [sname] – using [sname] as a qualifier in a search restricts it to the nametype
“scientific name”, the single preferred name for each taxon.

Common name, [cname] – restricts the search to common names.

Synonym, [synonym] – restricts the search to the “synonym” nametype.

Taxid, [uid] – restricts the search to taxonomy IDs, the unique numerical identifiers for taxa
in the database. Taxids are not indexed in the other Entrez name fields.
The NCBI Handbook

Hierarchy Fields
The [lineage] and [subtree] index fields are a way to superimpose the hierarchical relationships
represented in the taxonomy on top of the Entrez data model. For an example of how to use
these field limits for searching Taxonomy Entrez, see Box 3.

Box 3
Examples of combining the subtree and lineage field limits with Boolean
operators for searching Taxonomy Entrez
(1) Mammalia[subtree] AND Mammalia[lineage] returns the taxon Mammalia.
(2) Mammalia[subtree] OR Mammalia[lineage] returns all of the taxa in a direct parent–
child relationship with the taxon Mammalia.
(3) root[subtree] NOT (Mammalia[subtree] OR Mammalia[lineage]) returns all of the
The NCBI Handbook

taxa not in a direct parent–child relationship with the taxon Mammalia.

(4) Sauropsida[subtree] NOT Aves[subtree] will retrieve the members of the classical
taxon Reptilia, excluding the birds.

Lineage. For each node, the [lineage] index field retrieves all of the taxa listed at or above that
node in the taxonomy. For example, the query Mammalia[lineage] retrieves 18 taxa from
Entrez.

The Databases
 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

Subtree. For each node, the [subtree] index field retrieves all of the taxa listed at or below that
node in the taxonomy. For example, the query Mammalia[lineage] retrieves 4,021 taxa from
Entrez (as of March 9, 2002).

Next level. Returns all of the direct children of a given taxon.

Rank. Returns all of the taxa of a given Linnaean rank. The query Aves[subtree] AND species
[rank] retrieves all of the species of birds with public sequence entries (there are 2,459,
approximately half of the currently described species of extant birds).

Inherited Fields
The genetic code [gc], mitochondrial genetic code [mgc], and GenBank division [division]
fields are all inherited within the taxonomy. The information in these fields refers to the genetic
code used by a taxon or in which GenBank division it resides. Because whole families or
branches may use the same code or reside in the same GenBank division, this property is usually
The NCBI Handbook

indexed with a taxon high in the taxonomic tree, and the information is inherited by all those
taxa below it. If there is no [gc] field associated with a taxon in the database, it is assumed that
the standard genetic code is used. A genetic code may be referred to by either name or
translation table number. For example, the two equivalent queries, standard[gc] and translation
table 1[gc], each retrieves the set of organisms that use the standard genetic code for translating
genomic sequences. Likewise, these two queries echinoderm mitochondrial[mgc] and
translation table 9[mgc] will each retrieve the set of organisms that use the echinoderm
mitochondrial genetic code for translating their mitochondrial sequences.

Generic Entrez Fields

The remaining index fields are common to most or all Entrez domains, although some have
special features in the taxonomy domain. For example, the field text word, [word], indexes
words from the Taxonomy Entrez name indexes. Most punctuation is ignored, and the index
is searched one word at a time; therefore, the search “homo sapiens[word]” will retrieve
nothing.
The NCBI Handbook

Several useful terms are indexed in the properties field, [prop], including functional nametypes
and classifications, the rank level of a taxon, and inherited values. See Box 4 for a detailed
discussion of searches using the [prop] field.

Box 4
The properties [prop] field of Taxonomy in Entrez
There are several useful terms and phrases indexed in the [prop] field. Possible search
strategies that specify the prop field are explained below.
(1) Using functional nametypes and classifications
unspecified [prop] not identified at the species level
uncultured [prop] environmental sample sequences
The NCBI Handbook

unclassified [prop] listed in an “unclassified” bin

incertae sedis [prop] listed in an “incertae sedis” bin
We do not explicitly flag names as “unspecified” in TAXON; rather, we rely on heuristics
to index names as “unspecified” in the properties field. Many are missed. Taxa are indexed
as “uncultured” if they are listed within an environmental samples bin or if their scientific
names begin with the word “uncultured”.

The Databases
 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

(2) Using rank level of taxon

All of these search strategies below are valid. Taxonomy Entrez displays only taxa that are
linked to public sequence entries, and because sequence entries are supposed to correspond
to the Taxonomy database at or below the species level, the Entrez query: terminal [prop]
NOT “at or below species level” [prop] should only retrieve problem cases.
above genus level [prop]
above species level [prop]
“at or below species level” [prop] (needs explicit quotes)
below species level [prop]
terminal [prop]
non terminal [prop]
The NCBI Handbook

(3) Inherited value assignment points

genetic code [prop]
mitochondrial genetic code [prop]
standard [prop] invertebrate mitochondrial [prop]
translation table 5 [prop]
The query “genetic code [prop]” retrieves all of the taxa at which one of the genomic genetic
codes is explicitly set. The second query retrieves all of the taxa at which one of the
mitochondrial genetic codes is explicitly set, and so on.
division [prop]
INV [prop]
invertebrates [prop]
The NCBI Handbook

The above terms index the assignments of the GenBank division codes, which are divided
along crude taxonomic categories (see Chapter 1). We have placed the division flags in the
database so as to preserve the original assignment of species to GenBank divisions.

More information on using the generic Entrez fields can be found in the Entrez Help documents.

Taxonomy Fields in Other Entrez Databases

Many of the Entrez databases (Nucleotide, Protein, Genome, etc.) include an Organism field,
[orgn], that indexes entries in that database by taxonomic group. All of the names associated
with a taxon (scientific name, synonyms, common names, and so on) are indexed in the
Organism field and will retrieve the same set of entries. The Organism field will retrieve all
of the entries below the term and any of their children.

To not retrieve such “exploded” terms, the unexploded indexes should be used. This query will
The NCBI Handbook

only retrieve the entries that are linked directly to Homo sapiens: Homo sapiens[orgn:noexp].
This query will not retrieve entries that are linked to the subordinate node Homo sapiens
neanderthalensis.

Taxids are indexed with the prefix txid: txid9606 [orgn].

Source organism modifiers are indexed in the [properties] field, and such queries would be in
the form: src strain[prop], src variety[prop], or src specimen voucher[prop]. These queries will

The Databases
 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook

retrieve all entries with a strain qualifier, a variety qualifier, or a specimen_voucher qualifier,
respectively.

All of the organism source feature modifiers (/clone, /serovar, /variety, etc.) are indexed in the
text word field, [text word]. For example, one could query GenBank for: “strain k-12” [text
word]. Because strain information is inconsistent in the sequence databases (as in the literature),
a better query would be: “strain k 12”[word] OR “strain k12”[word]. Note: explicit double-
quotes may be necessary for some of these queries.

The Taxonomy Statistics Page

The Taxonomy Statistics page displays tables of counts of the number of taxa in the public
subset of the Taxonomy database. The numbers displayed are hyperlinks that will retrieve the
corresponding set of entries. The table can be configured to display data based on three criteria:
Entrez release date, rank, and taxa. The default setting shows the counts by rank for a pre-
The NCBI Handbook

selected set of taxa (across all dates).

The checkboxes unclassified, uncultured, and unspecified will exclude the corresponding
sets of taxa from the count. These work by appending the terms “NOT unclassified[prop]”,
etc., to the statistics query. Checking uncultured and unspecified removes about 20% of taxa
in the database and gives a much better count of the number of formally described species. As
of April 1, 2003, the count was as follows:

Archaea: 82 genera, 364 species

Bacteria: 1163 genera, 9927 species
Eukaryota: 24939 genera, 74832 species

Selecting one of the rank categories (e.g., species) loads a new table that shows, in this
example, the number of new species added to each taxon each year, starting with 1993. The
Interval pull-down menu shows release statistics in finer detail. The list of taxa in the display
The NCBI Handbook

can be customized through the Customize link.

Other Relevant References

Taxonomy FTP
A complete copy of the public NCBI taxonomy database is deposited several times a day on
our FTP site. See Table 1 for details.

Tax BLAST
Taxonomy BLAST reports (Tax BLAST) are available from the BLAST results page and from
the BLink pages. Tax BLAST post-processes the BLAST output results according to the source
organisms of the sequences in the BLAST results page. A help page is available that describes
the three different views presented on the Tax BLAST page (Lineage Report, Organism Report,
and Taxonomy Report).
The NCBI Handbook

Toolkit Function Libraries

The function library for the taxonomy application software in the NCBI Toolkit is ncbitxc2.a
(or libncbitxc2.a). The source code can be found in the NCBI Toolkit Source Browser and can
be downloaded from the toolbox directory on the FTP site.

The Databases
 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook

NCBI Taxonomists
In the early years of the project, Scott Federhen did all of the software and database
development. In recent years, Vladimir Soussov and his group have been responsible for
software and database development.

Scott Federhen (1990–present)

Andrzej Elzanowski (1994–1997)

Detlef Leipe (1994–present)

Mark Hershkovitz (1996–1997)

Carol Hotton (1997–present)

The NCBI Handbook

Mimi Harrington (1999–2000)

Ian Harrison (1999–2002)

Sean Turner (2000–present)

Rick Sternberg (2001–present)

Contact Us
If you have a comment or correction to our Taxonomy database, perhaps a misspelling or
classification or if something looks wrong, please send a message to [email protected].

Appendix 1. TAXON nametypes

Scientific Name
The NCBI Handbook

Every node in the database is required to have exactly one “scientific name”. Wherever
possible, this is a validly published name with respect to the relevant code of nomenclature.
Formal names that are subject to a code of nomenclature and are associated with a validly
published description of the taxon will be Latinized uninomials above the species level,
binomials (e.g. Homo sapiens) at the species level, and trinomials for the formally described
infraspecific categories (e.g., Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). For many of our taxa, it is not
possible to find an appropriate formal scientific name; these nodes are given an informal
“scientific name”. The different classes of informal names are discussed in Appendix 2.
Functional Classes of TAXON Scientific Names.

The scientific name is the one that will be used in all of the sequence entries that map to this
node in the Taxonomy database. Entries that are submitted with any of the other names
associated with this node will be replaced with this name. When we change the scientific name
of a node in the Taxonomy database, the corresponding entries in the sequence databases will
be updated to reflect the change. For example, we list Homo neanderthalensis as a synonym
The NCBI Handbook

for Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Both are in common use in the literature. We try to impose
consistent usage on the entries in the sequence databases, and resolving the nomenclatural
disputes that inevitably arise between submitters is one of the most difficult challenges that we
face.

The Databases
 Page 24
The NCBI Handbook

Synonym
The “synonym” nametype is applied to both synonyms in the formal nomenclatural sense
(objective, nomenclatural, homotypic versus subjective, heterotypic) and more loosely to
include orthographic variants and a host of names that have found their way into the taxonomy
database over the years, because they were found in sequence entries and later merged into the
same taxon in the Taxonomy database.

Acronym
The “acronym” nametype is used primarily for the viruses. The International Committee on
Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) maintains an official list of acronyms for viral species, but the
literature is often full of common variants, and it is convenient to list these as well. For example,
we list HIV, LAV-1, HIV1, and HIV-1 as acronyms for the human immunodeficiency virus
type 1.
The NCBI Handbook

Anamorph
The term “anamorph” is reserved for names applied to asexual forms of fungi, which present
some special nomenclatural challenges. Many fungi are known to undergo both sexual and
asexual reproduction at different points in their life cycle (so-called “perfect” fungi); for many
others, however, only the asexually reproducing (anamorphic or mitosporic) form is known
(in some, perhaps many, asexual species, the sexual cycle may have been lost altogether). These
anamorphs, often with simple and not especially diagnostic morphology, were given Linnaean
binomial names. A number of named anamorphic species have subsequently been found to be
associated with sexual forms (teleomorphs) with a different name (for example, Aspergillus
nidulans is the name given to the asexual stage of the teleomorphic species Emericella
nidulans). In these cases, the teleomorphic name is given precedence in the GenBank
Taxonomy database as the “scientific” name, and the anamorphic name is listed as an
“anamorph” nametype.

Misspelling
The NCBI Handbook

The “misspelling” nametype is for simple misspellings. Some of these are included because
the misspelling is present in the literature, but most of them are there because they were once
found in a sequence entry (which has since been corrected). We keep them in the database for
tracking purposes, because copies of the original sequence entry can still be retrieved.
Misspellings are not listed on the TaxBrowser pages nor on the Taxonomy Entrez Info display
views, but they are indexed in the Entrez search fields (so that searches and Entrez queries with
the misspelling will find the appropriate node).

Misnomer
“Misnomer” is a rarely used nametype. It is used for names that might otherwise be listed as
“misspellings” but which we want to appear on the browser and Entrez display pages.

Common Name
The “common name” nametype is used for vernacular names associated with a particular taxon.
The NCBI Handbook

These may be found at any level in the hierarchy; for example, “human”, “reptiles”, and “pale
devil's-claw” are all used. Common names should be in lowercase letters, except where part
of the name is derived from a proper noun, for example, “American butterfish” and “Robert's
arboreal rice rat”.

The use of common names is inherently variable, regional, and often inconsistent. There is
generally no authoritative reference that regulates the use of common names, and there is often
not perfect correspondence between common names and formally described scientific taxa;

The Databases
 Page 25
The NCBI Handbook

therefore, there are some caveats to their use. For scientific discourse, there is no substitute for
formal scientific names. Nevertheless, common names are invaluable for many indexing,
retrieval, and display purposes. The combination “Oecomys roberti (Robert's arboreal rice rat)”
conveys much more information than either name by itself. Issues raised by the variable,
regional, and inexact use of common names are partly addressed by the “genbank common
name” nametype (below) and the ability to customize names in the GenBank flatfile.

BLAST Name
The “BLAST names” are a specially designated set of common names selected from the
Taxonomy database. These were chosen to provide a pool of familiar names for large groups
of organisms (such as “insects”, “mammals”, “fungi”, and others) so that any particular species
(which may not have an informative common name of its own) could inherit a meaningful
collective common name from the Taxonomy database. This was originally developed for
BLAST, because a list of BLAST results will typically include entries from many species
The NCBI Handbook

identified by Latin binomials, which may not be familiar to all users. BLAST names may be
nested; for example, “eukaryotes”, “animals”, “chordates”, “mammals”, and “primates” are
all flagged as “blast names”.

Blast names are now used in several other applications, for example the Tax BLAST displays,
the Summary view in Entrez Taxonomy, and in the Summary display of the Common Tree
format.

In-part
The “in-part” nametype is included for retrieval terms that have a broader range of application
than the taxon or taxa at which they appear. For example, we list reptiles and Reptilia as in-
part nametypes at our nodes Testudines (the turtles), Lepidosauria (the lizards and snakes),
and Crocodylidae (the crocodilians).

Includes
The NCBI Handbook

The “includes” nametype is the opposite of the in-part nametype and is included for retrieval
terms that have a narrower scope of application than the taxon at which they appear. For
example, we could list “reptiles” as an “includes” nametype for the Amniota (or at any higher
node in the lineage).

Equivalent Name
The “equivalent name” nametype is a catch-all category, used for names that we would like to
associate with a particular node in the database (for indexing or tracking purposes) but which
do not seem to fit well into any of the other existing nametypes.

GenBank Common Name

The “genbank common name” was introduced to provide a mechanism by which, when there
is more than one common name associated with a particular node in the taxonomy, one of them
could be designated to be the common name that should be used by default in the GenBank
flatfiles and other applications that are trying to find a common name to use for display (or
The NCBI Handbook

other) purposes. This is not intended to confer any special status or blessing on this particular
common name over any of the other common names that might be associated with the same
node, and we have developed mechanisms to override this choice for a common name on a
case-by-case basis if another name is more appropriate or desirable for a particular sequence
entry. Each node may have at most one “genbank common name”.

The Databases
 Page 26
The NCBI Handbook

GenBank Acronym
There may be more than one acronym associated with a particular node in the Taxonomy
database (particularly if several virus names have been synonymized in a single species). Just
as with the “genbank common name”, the “genbank acronym” provides a mechanism to
designate one of them to be the acronym that should be used for display (or other) purposes.
Each node may have at most one “genbank acronym”.

GenBank Synonym
The “genbank synonym” nametype is intended for those special cases in which there is more
than one name commonly used in the literature for a particular species, and it is informative
to have both names displayed prominently in the corresponding sequence record. Each node
may have at most one “genbank synonym”. For example,
The NCBI Handbook

SOURCE Takifugu rubripes (Fugu rubripes)

ORGANISM Takifugu rubripes

GenBank Anamorph
Although the use of either the anamorph or teleomorph name is formally correct under the
International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, we prefer to give precedence to the telemorphic
name as the “scientific name” in the Taxonomy database, both to emphasize their commonality
and to avoid having two (or more) taxids that effectively apply to the same organism. However,
in many cases, the anamorphic name is much more commonly used in the literature, especially
when sequences are normally derived from the asexual form of the species. In these cases, the
“genbank anamorph” nametype can be used to annotate the corresponding sequence records
with both names. Each node may have at most one “genbank anamorph”. For example:

SOURCE Emericella nidulans (anamorph: Aspergillus nidulans)

The NCBI Handbook

ORGANISM Emericella nidulans

Appendix 2. Functional classes of TAXON scientific names

Formal Names
Whenever possible, formal scientific names are used for taxa. There are several codes of
nomenclature that regulate the description and use of names in different branches of the tree
of life. These are: the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the International
Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), the International Code of Nomenclature for
Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB), and
the International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature (ICVCN).

The viral code is less well developed than the others, but it includes an official classification
for the viruses as well as a list of approved species names. Viral names are not Latin binomials
(as required by the other codes), although there are some instances (e.g., Herpesvirus papio or
The NCBI Handbook

Herpesvirus sylvilagus). When possible, we try to use ICTV-approved names for viral taxa,
but new viral species names appear in the literature (and therefore in the sequence databases)
much faster than they are approved into the ICTV lists. We are working to set up taxonomy
LinkOut links (see Chapter 17) to the ICTV database, which will make the subset of ICTV-
approved names explicit.

The zoological, botanical, and bacteriological codes mandate Latin binomials for species
names. They do not describe an official classification (such as the ICTV), with the exception

The Databases
 Page 27
The NCBI Handbook

that the binomial species nomenclature itself makes the classification to the genus level explicit.
If a genus is found to be polyphyletic, the classification cannot be corrected without formally
renaming at least some of the species in the genus. (This is somewhat reminiscent of the “smart
identifier” problem in computer science.)

The fungi are subject to the botanical code. The cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) have been
subject to both the botanical and the bacteriological codes, and the issue is still controversial.

Authorities
“Authorities” appear at the end of the formal species name and include at least the name or
standard abbreviation of the taxonomist who first described that name in the scientific literature.
Other information may appear in the authority as well, often the year of description, and can
become quite complicated if the taxon has been transferred or amended by other taxonomists
over the years. We do not use authorities in our taxon names, although many are included in
the database listed as synonyms. We have made an exception to this rule in the case of our first
The NCBI Handbook

duplicated species name in the database, Agathis montana, to provide unambiguous names for
the corresponding sequence entries.

Subspecies
All three of the codes of nomenclature for cellular organisms provide for names at the
subspecies level. The botanical and bacteriological codes include the string “subsp.” in the
formal name; the zoological code does not, e.g., Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Zea mays
subsp. mays, and Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. ozaenae.

Varietas and Forma

The botanical code (but none of the others) provides for two additional formal ranks beneath
the subspecies level, varietas and forma. These names will include the strings “var.” and “f.”,
respectively, e.g., Marchantia paleacea var. diptera, Penicillium aurantiogriseum var.
neoechinulatum, Salix babylonica f. rokkaku, or Fragaria vesca subsp. Vesca f. alba
The NCBI Handbook

Other Subspecific Names

We list taxa with other subspecific names where it seems useful and appropriate and where it
is necessary to find places for names in the sequence databases. For indexing purposes in the
Genomes division of Entrez, it is convenient to have strain-level nodes for bacterial species
with a complete genome sequence, particularly when there are two or more complete genome
sequences available for different strains of the same species, e.g., Escherichia coli K12,
Escherichia coli O157:H7, Escherichia coli O157:H7 EDL933, Mycobacterium tuberculosis
CDC1551, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv.

Several other classes of subspecific groups do not have formal standing in the nomenclature
but represent well-characterized and biologically meaningful groups, e.g., serovar, pathovar,
forma specialis, and others. In many cases, these may eventually be promoted to a species;
therefore, it is convenient to represent them independently from the outset, e.g., Xanthomonas
campestris pv. campestris, Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria, Pneumocystis carinii f.
The NCBI Handbook

sp. hominis, Pneumocystis carinii f. sp. mustelae, Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar
Dublin, and Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Panama.

Many other names below the species level have been added to the Taxonomy database to
accommodate SWISS-PROT entries, where strain (and other) information is annotated with
the organism name for some species.

The Databases
 Page 28
The NCBI Handbook

Informal Names
In general, we try to avoid unqualified species names such as Bacillus sp., although many of
them exist in the Taxonomy database because of earlier sequence entries. Bacillus sp. is a
particularly egregious example, because Bacillus is a duplicated genus name and could refer
to either a bacterium or an insect. In our database, Bacillus sp. is assumed to be a bacterium,
but Bacillus sp. P-4-N, on the other hand, is classified with the insects.

When entries are not identified at the species level, multiple sequences can be from the same
unidentified species. Sequences from multiple different unidentified species in the same genus
are also possible. To keep track of this, we add unique informal names to the Taxonomy
database, e.g., a meaningful identifier from the submitters could be used. This could be a strain
name, a culture collection accession, a voucher specimen, an isolate name or location—
anything that could tie the entry to the literature (or even to the lab notebook). If nothing else
is available, we may construct a unique name using a default formula such as the submitter's
initials and year of submission. This way, if a formal name is ever determined or described for
The NCBI Handbook

any of these organisms, we can synonymize the informal name with the formal one in the
Taxonomy database, and the corresponding entries in the sequence databases will be updated
automatically. For example, AJ302786 was originally submitted (in November 2000) as
Agathis sp. and was added to the Taxonomy database as Agathis sp. RDB-2000. In January
2002, this wasp was identified as belonging to the species Agathis montana, and the node was
renamed; the informal name Agathis sp. RDB-2000 was listed as a synonym. A separate
member of the genus, Agathis sp. DMA-1998, is still listed with an informal name.

Here are some examples of informal names in the Taxonomy database:

Anabaena sp. PCC 7108

Anabaena sp. M14-2
Calophyllum sp. 'Fay et al. 1997'
Scutellospora sp. Rav1/RBv2/RCv3
The NCBI Handbook

Ehrlichia-like sp. 'Schotti variant'

Gilia sp. Porter and Heil 7991
Camponotus n. sp. BGW-2001
Camponotus sp. nr. gasseri BGW-2001
Drosophila sp. 'white tip scutellum'
Chrysoperla sp. 'C.c.2 slow motorboat'
Saranthe aff. eichleri Chase 3915
Agabus cf. nitidus IR-2001
Simulium damnosum s.l. 'Kagera'
Amoebophrya sp. ex Karlodinium micrum

We use single quotes when it seems appropriate to group a phrase into a single lexical unit.
Some of these names include abbreviations with special meanings.

“n. sp.” indicates that this is a new, undescribed species and not simply an unidentified species.
The NCBI Handbook

“sp. nr.” indicates “species near”. In the example above, this indicates that this is similar to
Camponotus gasseri. “aff.”, affinis, related to but not identical to the species given. “cf.”,
confer; literally, “compare with” conveys resemblance to a given species but is not necessarily
related to it. “s.l.”, sensu lato; literally, “in the broad sense”. “ex”, “from” or “out of” the
biological host of the specimen.

Note that names with cf., aff., nr., and n. sp. are not unique and should have unique identifiers
appended to the name.

The Databases
 Page 29
The NCBI Handbook

Cultured bacterial strains and other specimens that have not been identified to the genus level
are given informal names as well, e.g., Desulfurococcaceae str. SRI-465; crenarchaeote OlA-6.

Names such as Camponotus sp. 1 are avoided, because different submitters might easily use
the same name to refer to different species. See Box 4 for how to retrieve these names in
Taxonomy Entrez.

Uncultured Names
Sequences from environmental samples are given “uncultured” names. In these studies,
nucleotide sequences are cloned directly from the environment and come from varied sources,
such as Antarctic sea ice, activated sewer sludge, and dental plaque. Apart from the sequence
itself, there is no way to identify the source organisms or to recover them for further studies.
These studies are particularly important in bacterial systematics work, which shows that the
vast majority of environmental bacteria are not closely related to laboratory cultured strains
(as measured by 16S rRNA sequences). Many of the deepest-branching groups in our bacterial
The NCBI Handbook

classification are defined only by anonymous sequences from these environmental samples
studies, e.g., candidate division OP5, candidate division Termite group 1, candidate subdivision
kps59rc, phosphorous removal reactor sludge group, and marine archael group 1.

These samples vary widely in length and in quality, from short single-read sequences of a few
hundred base pairs to high-quality, full-length 16S sequences. We now give all of these samples
anonymous names, which may indicate the phylogenetic affiliation of the sequence, as far is
it may be determined, e.g., uncultured archaeon, uncultured crenarchaeote, uncultured gamma
proteobacerium, or uncultured enterobacterium. See Box 4 for how to retrieve these names in
Taxonomy Entrez.

Candidatus Names
Some groups of bacteria have never been cultured but can be characterized and reliably
recovered from the environment by other means. These include endosymbiotic bacteria and
organisms similar to the phytoplasmas, which can be identified by the plant diseases that they
The NCBI Handbook

cause. We do not give these “uncultured” names, as above. These represent a special challenge
for bacterial nomenclature, because a formal species description requires the designation of a
cultured type strain. The bacteriological code has a special provision for names of this sort,
Candidatus, e.g., Candidatus Endobugula or Candidatus Endobugula sertula; Candidatus
Phlomobacter or Candidatus Phlomobacter fragariae. These often appear in the literature
without the Candidatus prefix; therefore, we list the unqualified names as synonyms for
retrieval purposes.

Informal Names above the Species Level

We allow informal names for unranked nodes above the species level as well. These should
all be phylogenetically meaningful groups, e.g., the Fungi/Metazoa group, eudicotyledons,
Erythrobasidium clade, RTA clade, and core jakobids. In addition, there are several other
classes of nodes and names above the species level that explicitly do not represent
phylogenetically meaningful groups. These are outlined below.
The NCBI Handbook

Unclassified Bins
We are expected to add new species names to the database in a timely manner, preferably
within a day or two. If we are able to find only a partial classification for a new taxon in the
database, we place it as deeply as we can and list it in an explicit “unclassified” bin. As more
information becomes available, these bins are emptied, and we give full classifications to the
taxa listed there. In general, we suppress the names of the unclassified bins themselves so they

The Databases
 Page 30
The NCBI Handbook

do not appear in the abbreviated lineages that appear in the GenBank flatfiles, e.g., unclassified
Salticidae, unclassified Bacteria, and unclassified Myxozoa.

Incertae Sedis Bins

If the best taxonomic opinion available is that the position of a particular taxon is uncertain,
then we will list it in an “incertae sedis” bin. This is a more permanent assignment than for
taxa that are listed in unclassified bins, e.g., Neoptera incertae sedis, Chlorophyceae incertae
sedis, and Riodininae incertae sedis.

Mitosporic Bins
Fungi that were known only in the asexual (mitosporic, anamorphic) state were placed formerly
in a separate, highly polyphyletic category of “imperfect” fungi, the Deuteromycota. Spurred
especially by the development of molecular phylogenetics, current mycological practice is to
classify anamorphic species as close to their sexual relatives as available information will
The NCBI Handbook

support. Mitosporic categories can occur at any rank, e.g., mitosporic Ascomycota, mitosporic
Hymenomycetes, mitosporic Hypocreales, and mitosporic Coniochaetaceae. The ultimate goal
is to fully incorporate anamorphs into the natural phylogenetic classification.

Other Names
The requirement that the Taxonomy database includes names from all of the entries in the
sequence database introduces a number of names that are not typically treated in a taxonomic
database. These are listed in the top-level group “Other”. Plasmids are typically annotated with
their host organism, using the /plasmid source organism qualifier. Broad-host-range plasmids
that are not associated with any single species are listed in their own bin. Plasmid and
transposon names from very old sequence entries are listed in separate bins here as well.
Plasmids that have been artificially engineered are listed in the “vectors” bin.

Appendix 3. Other TAXON data types

The NCBI Handbook

Ranks
We do not require that Linnaean ranks be assigned to all of our taxa, but we do include a
standard rank table that allows us to assign formal ranks where it seems appropriate. We do
not require that sibling taxa all have the same rank, but we do not allow taxa of higher rank to
be listed beneath taxa of lower rank. We allow unranked nodes to be placed at any point in our
classification.

The one rank that we particularly care about is “species”. We try to ensure that all of the
sequence entries map into the Taxonomy database at or below a species-level node.

Genetic Codes
The genetic codes and mitochondrial genetic codes that are appropriate for translating protein
sequences in different branches of the tree of life are assigned at nodes in the Taxonomy
database and inherited by species at the terminal branches of the tree. Plastid sequences are all
translated with the standard genetic code, but many of the mRNAs undergo extensive RNA
The NCBI Handbook

editing, making it difficult or impossible to translate sequences from the plastid genome
directly. The genetic codes are listed on our Web site.

GenBank Divisions
GenBank taxonomic division assignments are made in the Taxonomy database and inherited
by species at the terminal branches of the tree, just as with the genetic codes.

The Databases
 Page 31
The NCBI Handbook

References
The Taxonomy database allows us to store comments and references at any taxon. These may
include hotlinks to abstracts in PubMed, as well as links to external addresses on the Web.

Abbreviated Lineage
Some branches of our taxonomy are many levels deep, e.g., the bony fish (as we moved to a
phylogenetic classification) and the drosophilids (a model taxon for evolutionary studies). In
many cases, the classification lines in the GenBank flatfiles became longer than the sequences
themselves. This became a storage and update issue, and the classification lines themselves
became less helpful as generally familiar taxa names became buried within less recognizable
taxa.

To address this problem, the Taxonomy database allows us to flag taxa that should (or should
not) appear in the abbreviated classification line in the GenBank flatfiles. The full lineages are
The NCBI Handbook

indexed in Entrez and displayed in the Taxonomy Browser.

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Database (dbSNP) of

Nucleotide Sequence Variation
[Chapter 5]

Adrienne Kitts
Stephen Sherry

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

Sequence variations exist at defined positions within genomes and are responsible for individual
phenotypic characteristics, including a person's propensity toward complex disorders such as heart
disease and cancer. As tools for understanding human variation and molecular genetics, sequence
variations can be used for gene mapping, definition of population structure, and performance of
functional studies.
The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism database (dbSNP) is a public-domain archive for a broad
collection of simple genetic polymorphisms. This collection of polymorphisms includes single-base
nucleotide substitutions (also known as single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs), small-scale
multi-base deletions or insertions (also called deletion insertion polymorphisms or DIPs), and
retroposable element insertions and microsatellite repeat variations (also called short tandem repeats
or STRs). Please note that in this chapter, you can substitute any class of variation for the term SNP.
Each dbSNP entry includes the sequence context of the polymorphism (i.e., the surrounding
sequence), the occurrence frequency of the polymorphism (by population or individual), and the
experimental method(s), protocols, and conditions used to assay the variation.
The NCBI Handbook

dbSNP accepts submissions for variations in any species and from any part of a genome. This
document will provide you with options for finding SNPs in dbSNP, discuss dbSNP content and
organization, and furnish instructions to help you create your own (local) copy of dbSNP.

Introduction
The dbSNP has been designed to support submissions and research into a broad range of
biological problems. These include physical mapping, functional analysis, pharmacogenomics,
association studies, and evolutionary studies. Because dbSNP was developed to complement
GenBank, it may contain nucleotide sequences (Figure 1) from any organism.

Physical Mapping
In the physical mapping of nucleotide sequences, variations are used as positional markers.
When mapped to a unique location in a genome, variation markers work with the same logic
The NCBI Handbook

as Sequence Tagged Sites (STSs) or framework microsatellite markers. As is the case for STSs,
the position of a variation is defined by its unique flanking sequence, and hence, variations can
serve as stable landmarks in the genome, even if the variation is fixed for one allele in a sample.
When multiple alleles are observed in a sample pedigree, pedigree members can be tested for
variation genotypes as in traditional physical mapping studies.

Functional Analysis
Variations that occur in functional regions of genes or in conserved non-coding regions might
cause significant changes in the complement of transcribed sequences. This can lead to changes
in protein expression that can affect aspects of the phenotype such as metabolism or cell
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

signaling. We note possible functional implications of DNA sequence variations in dbSNP in

terms of how the variation alters mRNA transcripts.

Association Studies
The associations between variations and complex genetic traits are more ambiguous than
simple, single-gene mutations that lead to a phenotypic change. When multiple genes are
involved in a trait, then the identification of the genetic causes of the trait requires the
identification of the chromosomal segment combinations, or haplotypes, that carry the putative
gene variants.

Evolutionary Studies
The variations in dbSNP currently represent an uneven but large sampling of genome diversity.
The human data in dbSNP include submissions from the SNP Consortium, variations mined
from genome sequence as part of the human genome project, and individual lab contributions
The NCBI Handbook

of variations in specific genes, mRNAs, ESTs, or genomic regions.

Null Results Are Important

Systematic surveys of sequence variation will undoubtedly reveal sequences that are invariant
in the sample. These observations can be submitted to dbSNP as NoVariation records that
record the sequence, the population, and the sample size that were used in the survey.

Searching dbSNP
The SNP database can be queried from the dbSNP homepage (Figures 2a and 2b), by using
Entrez SNP, or by using the links to the six basic dbSNP search options located just below the
text box at the top of the dbSNP homepage. Each of these six search options is described below.

Entrez SNP
dbSNP is a part of the Entrez integrated information retrieval system (Chapter 15) and may be
The NCBI Handbook

searched using either qualifiers (aliases) or a combination of 25 different search fields. A

complete list of the qualifiers and search fields can be found on the Entrez SNP site.

Single Record (Search by ID Number) Query in dbSNP

Use this query module to select SNPs based on dbSNP record identifiers. These include
reference SNP (refSNP) cluster ID numbers (rs#), submitted SNP Accession numbers (ss#),
local (or submitter) IDs, Celera IDs, Genbank accession numbers, and STS accession numbers.

SNP Submission Information Queries

Use this module to construct a query that will select SNPs based on submission records by
laboratory (submitter), new data (called “new batches” — this query limitation is more recent
than a user-specified date), the methods used to assay for variation (Table 1) populations of
interest (Table 2), and publication information.
The NCBI Handbook

dbSNP Batch Query

Use sets of variation IDs (including RefSNP (rs) IDs, Submitted SNP (ss) IDs, and Local SNP
IDs) collected from other queries to generate a variety of SNP reports.

Locus Information Query

This search was originally accomplished by LocusLink, which has now been replaced by Entrez
Gene. Entrez Gene is the successor to LocusLink and has two major differences that

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

differentiate it from Locus Link: Entrez Gene is greater in scope (more of the genomes
represented by NCBI Reference Sequences or RefSeqs) and Entrez Gene has been integrated
for indexing and query in NCBI's Entrez system.

Between-Markers Positional Query

Use this query approach if you are interested in retrieving variations that have been mapped
to a specific region of the genome bounded by two STS markers. Other map-based queries are
available through the NCBI Map Viewer tool.

ADA Section 508-compliant Link

All links located on the left sidebar of the dbSNP homepage are also provided in text format
at the bottom of the page to support browsing by text-based Web browsers. Suggestions for
improving database access by disabled persons should be sent to the dbSNP development group
[[email protected]].
The NCBI Handbook

Submitted Content
The SNP database has two major classes of content: the first class is submitted data, i.e., original
observations of sequence variation; and the second class is computed content, i.e., content
generated during the dbSNP “build” cycle by computation on original submitted data.
Computed content consists of refSNPs, other computed data, and links that increase the utility
of dbSNP.

A complete copy of the SNP database is publicly available and can be downloaded from the
SNP FTP site (see the section How to Create a Local Copy of dbSNP). dbSNP accepts
submissions from public laboratories and private organizations. (There are online
instructions for preparing a submission to dbSNP.) A short tag or abbreviation called Submitter
HANDLE uniquely defines each submitting laboratory and groups the submissions within the
database. The 10 major data elements of a submission follow.
The NCBI Handbook

Flanking Sequence Context DNA or cDNA

The essential component of a submission to dbSNP is the nucleotide sequence itself. dbSNP
accepts submissions as either genomic DNA or cDNA (i.e., sequenced mRNA transcript)
sequence. Sequence submissions have a minimum length requirement to maximize the
specificity of the sequence in larger contexts, such as a reference genome sequence. We also
structure submissions so that the user can distinguish regions of sequence actually surveyed
for variation from regions of sequence that are cut and pasted from a published reference
sequence to satisfy the minimum-length requirements. Figure 1 shows the details of flanking
sequence structure.

Alleles
Alleles define variation class (Table 3). In the dbSNP submission scheme, we define single-
nucleotide variants as G, A, T, or C. We do not permit ambiguous IUPAC codes, such as N,
in the allele definition of a variation. In cases where variants occur in close proximity to one
The NCBI Handbook

another, we permit IUPAC codes such as N, and in the flanking sequence of a variation, we
actually encourage them. See Table 3 for the rules that guide dbSNP post-submission
processing in assigning allele classes to each variation.

Method
Each submitter defines the methods in their submission as either the techniques used to assay
variation or the techniques used to estimate allele frequencies. We group methods by method

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

class (Table 1) to facilitate queries using general experimental technique as a query field. The
submitter provides all other details of the techniques in a free-text description of the method.
Submitters can also use the METHOD_EXCEPTION_ field to describe changes to a general
protocol for particular sets of data (batch-specific details). Submitters generally define methods
only once in the database.

Population
Each submitter defines population samples either as the group used to initially identify
variations or as the group used to identify population-specific measures of allele frequencies.
These populations may be one and the same in some experimental designs. We assign
populations a population class (Table 2) based on the geographic origin of the sample. These
broad categories provide a general framework for organizing the approximately 700 (as of this
writing) sample descriptions in dbSNP. Similar to method descriptions, population descriptions
minimally require the submitter to provide a Population ID and a free-text description of the
The NCBI Handbook

sample.

Sample Size
There are two sample-size fields in dbSNP. One field is called SNPASSAY SAMPLE SIZE,
and it reports the number of chromosomes in the sample used to initially ascertain or discover
the variation. The other sample size field is called SNPPOPUSE SAMPLE SIZE, and it reports
the number of chromosomes used as the denominator in computing estimates of allele
frequencies. These two measures need not be the same.

Population-specific Allele Frequencies

Alleles typically exist at different frequencies in different populations; a very common allele
in one population may be quite rare in another population. Also, allelic variants can emerge as
private polymorphisms when particular populations have been reproductively isolated from
neighboring groups, as is the case with religious isolates or island populations. Frequency data
are submitted to dbSNP as allele counts or binned frequency intervals, depending on the
The NCBI Handbook

precision of the experimental method used to make the measurement. dbSNP contains records
of allele frequencies for specific population samples defined by each submitter (Table 4).

Population-specific Genotype Frequencies

Similar to alleles, genotypes have frequencies in populations that can be submitted to dbSNP.

Population-specific Heterozygosity Estimates

Some methods for detection of variation (e.g., denaturing high-pressure liquid chromatography
or DHPLC) can recognize when DNA fragments contain a variation without resolving the
precise nature of the sequence change. These data define an empirical measure of
heterozygosity when submitted to dbSNP.

Individual Genotypes
dbSNP accepts individual genotypes for samples from publicly available repositories such as
The NCBI Handbook

CEPH or Coriell. Genotypes reported in dbSNP contain links to population and method
descriptions. General genotype data provide the foundation for individual haplotype definitions
and are useful for selecting positive and negative control reagents in new experiments.

Validation Information
dbSNP accepts individual assay records (ss numbers) without validation evidence. When
possible, however, we try to distinguish high-quality validated data from unconfirmed (usually

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

computational) variation reports. Assays validated directly by the submitter through the
VALIDATION section show the type of evidence used to confirm the variation. Additionally,
dbSNP will flag an assay as validated (Table 4) when we observe frequency or genotype data
for the record.

Computed Content (The dbSNP Build Cycle)

We release the content of dbSNP to the public in periodic “builds” that we synchronize with
the release of new genome assemblies for each organism (Chapter 14). During each build, we
map both the data submitted since the last build and the current refSNP set to the genome. The
following 7 tasks define the sequence of steps in the dbSNP build cycle (Figure 3).

Submitted SNPs and Reference SNP Clusters

Once a new SNP is submitted to dbSNP, it is assigned a unique submitted SNP ID number
(ss#). Once the ss number is assigned, we align the flanking sequence of each submitted SNP
The NCBI Handbook

to its appropriate genomic contig. If several ss numbers map to the same position on the contig,
we cluster them together, call the cluster a “reference SNP cluster”, or “refSNP”, and provide
the cluster with a unique RefSNP ID number (rs#). If only one ss number maps to a specific
position, then that ss is assigned an rs number and is the only member of its RefSNP cluster
until another submitted SNP is found that maps to the same position.

A refSNP has a number of summary properties that are computed over all cluster members
(Figure 4), and are used to annotate the variations contained in other NCBI resources. We
export the entire dbSNP refSNP set in many report formats on the FTP site, and deliver them
as sets of results when a user conducts a dbSNP batch query. We also maintain both refSNPs
and submitted SNPs in FASTA databases for use in BLAST searches of dbSNP.

New Submissions and the Start of a New Build

Each build starts with a “close of data” that defines the set of new submissions that will be
mapped to genome sequence by multiple cycles of BLAST and MegaBLAST for subsequent
The NCBI Handbook

annotation and grouping of the SNPs into refSNPs. The set of new data entering each build
typically includes all submissions received since the close of data in the previous build.

Mapping to a Genome Sequence

When a new genome build is ready, dbSNP obtains the FASTA files for submitted SNPs that
were submitted prior to the “close of data”, as well as the FASTA files for the refSNPs in the
current build, and then maps the submitted SNPs and refSNPs to the genome sequence using
the procedure described in Appendix 2. The refSNP set is also mapped to the previous genome
assembly to support users who require older mapping data (e.g. during the production cycle
for dbSNP human build 126, The refSNP set was mapped to both human build 36.1 and human
build 35.1).

It should also be mentioned that during a build cycle, some organisms have refSNPs mapped
to multiple assemblies (e.g. human has two major assemblies: the NCBI Reference Genome
assembly and the Celera assembly).
The NCBI Handbook

refSNP Clustering and refSNP Orientation

Since submitters to dbSNP can arbitrarily define variations on either strand of DNA sequence,
submissions in a refSNP cluster can be reported on the forward or reverse strand. The
orientation of the refSNP, and hence its sequence and allele string, is set by a cluster exemplar.
By convention, the cluster exemplar is the member of a cluster that has longest sequence. In
subsequent builds, this sequence may be in reverse orientation to the current orientation of the

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

refSNP. When this occurs, we preserve the orientation of the refSNP by using the reverse
complement of the cluster exemplar to set the orientation of the refSNP sequence.

Once the clustering process determines the orientation of all member sequences in a cluster, it
will gather a comprehensive set of alleles for a refSNP cluster.

Hint:

When the alleles of a submission appear to be different from the alleles of its parent refSNP, check the orientation of the
submission for reverse orientation.

Re-Mapping and refSNP Merging

RefSNPs are operationally defined as a variation at a location on an ideal reference
chromosome. Such reference chromosomes are the goal of genome assemblies. However, since
work is still in progress on many of the genome projects, and since even the‘finished’ genomes
The NCBI Handbook

are updated to correct past annotation errors, we currently define a refSNP as a variation in the
interim reference sequence. Every time there is a genomic assembly update, the interim
reference sequence may change, so the refSNPs must be updated or re-clustered.

The re-clustering process begins when NCBI updates the genomic assembly. All existing
refSNPs (rs) and newly submitted SNPs (ss) are mapped to the genome assembly using multiple
BLAST and MegaBLAST cycles as delineated in Appendix 2. We then cluster SNPs that co-
locate at the same place on the genome into a single refSNP. Newly submitted SNPs can either
co-locate to form a new refSNP cluster, or may instead cluster with an already existing refSNP.
When newly submitted SNPs cluster among themselves, they are assigned a new refSNP
number, and when they cluster with an already existing refSNP, they are assigned to that refSNP
cluster.

Sometimes an existing refSNP will co-locate with another refSNP when dbSNP begins using
an improved clustering algorithm, or when genome assemblies change between builds. A
The NCBI Handbook

refSNP co-locates with another refSNP only if the mapped chromosome positions of the two
refSNPs are identical. So when dbSNP uses an improved clustering algorithm that enhances
our ability to more precisely place refSNPs, if the new placement of a refSNP is identical in
location to another refSNP, the two refSNPs co-locate. Similarly, if a change in a genome
assembly alters the position of a refSNP so that it is identical with the position of another
refSNP, the two refSNPs co-locate. When two existing refSNPs co-locate, the refSNP with the
higher refSNP number is retired (which means we never reuse it), and all the submitted SNPs
in that higher refSNP cluster number are re-assigned to the refSNP with the lower refSNP
number. The re-assignment of the submitted SNPs from a higher refSNP number to a refSNP
cluster with a lower refSNP number is called a “merge”, and occurs during the “rs merge” step
of the dbSNP mapping process. Merging is only used to reduce redundancy in the catalog of
rs numbers so that each position has a unique identifier. All "rs merge" actions that occur are
recorded and tracked.

There is an important exception to the merge process described above; this exception occurs
The NCBI Handbook

when a co-locating SNP meets certain clinical and publication criteria. A refSNP meeting these
criteria is termed “precious” and will keep its original refSNP number (the refSNP number will
NOT retire as discussed above) if it co-locates with a SNP that has a lower refSNP number.
The purpose of having “precious” SNPs is to maintain refSNP number continuity for those
SNPs that have been cited in the literature and are clinically important.

Once the clusters are formed, the variation of a refSNP is the union of all possible alleles defined
in the set of submitted SNPs that compose the cluster.

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Please Note: dbSNP only merges rs numbers that have an identical set of mappings to a genome
and the same allele type (e.g. both must be the same variation type and share one allele in
common). We therefore would not merge a SNP and an indel (insertion/deletion) into a single
rs number (different variation classes) since they represent two different types of mutational
"events".

RefSNP Number Stability

The stability of a refSNP number depends on what is meant by “stable”. If a refSNP number
has been merged into another refSNP number, it is very easy to use a retired refSNP number
to find the current refSNP number (see hint below) — so in this case, one could consider a
refSNP number to be stable since merged refSNP numbers are always associated with, and can
always retrieve the current refSNP number.

Hint:
The NCBI Handbook

There are three ways the you can locate the partner numbers of a merged refSNP:
• If you enter a retired rs number into the “Search for IDs” search text box on the dbSNP home page, the response
page will state that the SNP has been merged, and will provide the new rs number and a link to the refSNP page
for that new rs number.
• You can retrieve a list of merged rs numbers from Entrez SNP. Just type “mergedrs” (without the quotation
marks) in the text box at the top of the page and click the “go” button. ). You can limit the output to merged rs
numbers within a certain species by clicking on the “Limits” tab and then selecting the organism you wish from
the organism selection box. Each entry in the returned list will include the old rs numbers that has merged, and
the new rs number it has merged into (with a link to the refSNPpage for the new rs number).
• You can also review the RsMergeArch table for the merge partners of a particular species of interest, as it tracks
all merge events that occur in dbSNP. This table is available on the dbSNP FTP site, a full description of of it
can be found in the dbSNP Data Dictionary, and the column definitions are located in the
dbSNP_main_table.sql.gz, which can be found in the shared_schema directory of the dbSNP FTP site.

If, however, what is meant by “stable” is that the refSNP number of a particular variation always
remains the same, then one should not consider a refSNP entirely stable, as a refSNP number
may change if two refSNP numbers merge as described above. Merging is more likely to
happen, however, if the submitted flanking sequence of the refSNP exemplar is short, is of low
The NCBI Handbook

quality, or if the genome assembly is immature. A refSNP number may also change if:
• All of the submitted SNP (ss) numbers in a refSNP cluster are withdrawn by the
submitter(a less than 1 in 100 occurrence)
• dbSNP breaks up an existing cluster and re-instantiates a retired rs number based on
a reported conflict from a dbSNP user (a less than 1 in 1,000,000 occurrence)

Functional Analysis
Variation Functional Class
We compute a functional context for sequence variations by inspecting the flanking sequence
for gene features during the contig annotation process, and do the same for RefSeq/GenBank
mRNAs.

Table 5 defines variation functional classes. We base class on the relationship between a
variation and any local gene features. If a variation is near a transcript or in a transcript interval,
The NCBI Handbook

but not in the coding region, then we define the functional class by the position of the variation
relative to the structure of the aligned transcript. In other words, a variation may be near a gene
(locus region), in a UTR (mRNA-utr), in an intron (intron), or in a splice site (splice site). If
the variation is in a coding region, then the functional class of the variation depends on how
each allele may affect the translated peptide sequence.

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Typically, one allele of a variation will be the same as the contig (contig reference), and the
other allele will be either a synonymous change or a non-synonymous change. In some cases,
one allele will be a synonymous change, and the other allele will be a non-synonymous change.
If either allele in the variation is a non-synonymous change, then the variation is classified as
non-synonymous; otherwise, the variation is classified as a synonymous variation. The primary
functional classifications are as follows:
• The functional class is noted as Contig Reference when the allele is identical to the
contig (contig reference), and hence causes no change to the translated sequence.
• The functional class is noted as synonymous substitution when an allele that is
substituted for the reference sequence yields a new codon that encodes the same amino
acid.
• The functional class is noted as non-synonymous substitution when an allele that is
substituted for the reference sequence yields a new codon that encodes a different
amino acid.
The NCBI Handbook

• The functional class is noted as coding when a problem with the annotated coding
region feature prohibits conceptual translation. The coding notation is based solely on
position in this case.
Because functional classification is defined by positional and sequence parameters, two facts
emerge: (a) if a gene has multiple transcripts because of alternative splicing, then a variation
may have several different functional relationships to the gene; and (b) if multiple genes are
densely packed in a contig region, then a variation at a single location in the genome may have
multiple, potentially different, relationships to its local gene neighbors.

SNP Position in 3D Structure

When a SNP results in amino acid sequence change, knowing where that amino acid lies in
the protein structure is valuable. We provide this information using the following procedure:
To find the location of a SNP within a particular protein, we attempt to identify similar proteins
whose structure is known by comparing the protein sequence against proteins from the PDB
The NCBI Handbook

database of known protein structures using BLAST. Then, if we find matches, we use the
BLAST alignment to identify the amino acid in the protein of known structure that corresponds
to the amino acid containing the SNP. We store the position of the amino acid on the 3D
structure that corresponds to the amino acid containing the SNP in the dbSNP table SNP3D.

Population Diversity Data

The best single measure of a variation's diversity in different populations is its average
heterozygosity. This measure serves as the general probability that both alleles are in a diploid
individual or in a sample of two chromosomes. Estimates of average heterozygosity have an
accompanying standard error based on the sample sizes of the underlying data, which reflects
the overall uncertainty of the estimate. dbSNP’s computation of average heterozygosity and
standard error for RefSNP clusters is available online. Please note that dbSNP computes
heterozygosity based on the submitted allele frequency for each SNP. If the frequency data for
a SNP is not submitted, we cannot compute the heterozygosity value, and therefore the refSNP
report will show no heterozygosity estimate.
The NCBI Handbook

Additional population diversity data include population counts, individuals sampled for a
variation, genotype frequencies, and Hardy Weinberg probabilities.

Build Resource Integration

We annotate the non-redundant set of variations (refSNP cluster set) on reference genome
sequence contigs, chromosomes, mRNAs, and proteins as part of the NCBI RefSeq project

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

(Chapter 18). We compute summary properties for each refSNP cluster, which we then use to
build fresh indexes for dbSNP in the Entrez databases, and to update the variation map in the
NCBI Map Viewer. Finally, we update links between dbSNP and dbMHC, OMIM,
Homologene, the NCBI Probe database, PubMed, UniGene, and UniSTS.

Annotating GenBank and Other RefSeq Records

GenBank records can be annotated only by their original authors. Therefore, when we find
high-quality hits of refSNP records to the HTGS and non-redundant divisions of GenBank, we
connect them using LinkOut (Chapter 17).

We annotate RefSeq mRNAs with variation features when the refSNP has a high-quality hit
to the mRNA sequence. If the variation is in the coding region of the transcript and has a non-
synonymous allele that changes the protein sequence, we also annotate the variation on the
protein translation of the mRNA. The alleles in protein annotations are the amino acid
translations of the affected codons.
The NCBI Handbook

NCBI Map Viewer Variation and Linkage Maps

The Map Viewer (Chapter 20) can show multiple maps of sequence features in common
chromosome coordinates. The variation map shows all variation features that we annotate on
the current genome assembly. There are two ways to see the variation data. The default graphic
mode shows the data as tick marks on the vertical coordinate scale. When variation is selected
as the master map from the Maps and Options drop-down menu, and the user zooms in on the
map to the individual RefSNP level, a summary of map quality, variation quality warning,
functional relationships to genes, average heterozygosity with standard error, and validation
information are provided. If genotype, haplotype, or LinkOut data are available, the master
map will also contain links to this information.

Public Release
Public release of a new build involves an update to the public database and the production of
The NCBI Handbook

a new set of files on the dbSNP FTP site. We make an announcement to the dbsnp-announce
mailing list when the new build for an organism is publicly available.

dbSNP Resource Integration

Links from SNP Records to Submitter Websites
The SNP database supports and encourages connections between assay records (submitted SNP
ID numbers, or ss numbers) and supplementary data on the submitter's Web site. This
connection is made using the LINKOUT field in the SNPassay batch header. LinkOut URLs
are base URLs to which dbSNP can append the submitter's ID for the variation to construct a
complete URL to the specific data for the record. We provide LinkOut pointers in the batch
header section of SNP detail reports and in the refSNP report cluster membership section.

Links within NCBI

We make the following connections between refSNP clusters and other NCBI resources during
The NCBI Handbook

the contig annotation process:

Entrez Gene
There are two methods by which we localize variations to known genes: (a) if a variation is
mapped to the genome, we note the variation/gene relationship (Table 5) during functional
classification and store the locus_id of the gene in the dbSNP table SNPContigLocusId; and
(b) if the variation does not map to the genome, we look for high-quality blast hits for the

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

variation against mRNA sequence. We note these hits with the protein_ID (PID) of the protein
(the conceptual translation of the mRNA transcript). Entrez Gene scans this table nightly and
updates the table MapLinkPID with the locus_id for the gene when the protein is a known
product of a gene.

UniSTS
When an original submitted SNP record shows a relationship between a SNP and a STS, we
share the data with dbSTS and establish a link between the SNP and the STS record. We also
examine refSNPs for proximity to STS features during contig annotation. When we determine
that a variation needs to be placed within an STS feature, we note the relationship in the dbSNP
table SnpInSts.

UniGene
The contig annotation pipeline relates refSNPs to UniGene EST clusters based on shared
The NCBI Handbook

chromosomal location. We store Variation/UniGene cluster relationships in the dbSNP table

UnigeneSnp.

PubMed
We connect individual submissions to PubMed record(s) of publications cited at the time of
submission. To view links from PubMed to dbSNP, select “linkouts” as a PubMed query result.

dbMHC
dbSNP stores the underlying variation data that define HLA alleles at the nucleotide level. The
combinations of alleles that define specific HLA alleles are stored in dbMHC. dbSNP points
to dbMHC at the haplotype level, and dbMHC points to dbSNP at both the haplotype and
variation level.

How to Create a Local Copy of dbSNP

The NCBI Handbook

dbSNP is a relational database that contains hundreds of tables. Since the inception of build
125, the design dbSNP has been altered to a ”hub and spoke” model, where the
dbSNP_Main_Table acts as the hub of a wheel, storing all of the central tables of the database,
while each spoke of the wheel is an organism-specific database that contains the latest data for
a specific organism. dbSNP exports the full contents of the database for the public to download
from the dbSNP FTP site.

Due to security concerns and vendor endorsement issues, we cannot provide users with direct
dumps of dbSNP. The task of creating a local copy of dbSNP can be complicated, and should
be left to an experienced programmer. The following sections will guide you in the process of
creating a local copy of dbSNP, but these instructions assume knowledge of relational
databases, and were not written with the novice in mind.

If you have problems establishing a local copy of dbSNP, please contact dbSNP [mailto:snp-
[email protected]].
The NCBI Handbook

Schema: The dbSNP Physical Model

A schema is a necessary part of constructing your own copy of dbSNP because it is a visual
representation of dbSNP that shows the logical relationship between data in dbSNP. It is
available as a printable PDF file from the dbSNP FTP site.

Data in dbSNP are organized into “subject areas” depending on the nature of the data. The
data dictionary currently includes a description of all the tables in dbSNP as well as tables of

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

columns and their properties. Foreign keys are not enforced in the physical model because they
make it harder to load table data asynchronously. In the future, we will add descriptions of
individual columns. The data dictionary is also available online from the dbSNP Web site.

Resources Required for Creating a Local Copy of dbSNP

• Relational database software. If you are planning to create a local copy of dbSNP,
you must first have a relational database server, such as Sybase, Microsoft SQL server,
or Oracle. dbSNP at NCBI runs on an MSSQL server version 2000, but we know of
users who have successfully created their local copy of dbSNP on Oracle.
• Data loading tool. Loading data from the dbSNP FTP site into a database requires a
bulk data-loading tool, which usually comes with a database installation. An example
of such a tool is the bcp (bulk-copy) utility that comes with Sybase, or the
“bulkinsert”command in the MSSQL server.
• winzip/gzip to decompress FTP files. Complete instructions on how to uncompress
The NCBI Handbook

*.gz and *.Z files can be found on the dbSNP FTP site.

• Computer platforms/OS. Databases can be maintained on any PC, Mac, or UNIX

with an Internet connection.
• Disk space. Currently, a complete copy of dbSNP that will include all organisms
contained in dbSNP requires 500 GB of space. Depending on the organism you are
interested in, you can simply create a local database that only includes data for the
organism of your interest. Please allow room for growth.
• Memory. The current sql server for dbSNP has 4GB of memory.
• Internet connection. We recommend a high-speed connection to download such large
database files.

The FTP database directory in the dbSNP FTP site contains the schema, data, and SQL
statements to create the tables and indices for dbSNP:
The NCBI Handbook

• The shared_schema subdirectory contains the schema DDL (SQL Data Definition
Language) for the dbSNP_main_table.
• The shared_data subdirectory contains data housed in the dbSNP_main_table that is
shared by all organisms.
• The organism_schema sub-directory contains links to the schema DDL for each
organism specific database.
• The organism_data sub-directory contains links to the data housed in each organism
specific database. The data organized in tables, where there is one file per table. The
file name convention is: <tablename>.bcp.gz. The file name convention for the
mapping table also includes the dbSNP build ID number and the NCBI genome build
ID number. For example, B125_SNPContigLoc_35_1 means that during dbSNP build
125, this SNPContigLoc table has SNPs mapped to NCBI contig build 35 version 1.
The data files have one line per table row. Fields of data within each file are tab
delimited.
The NCBI Handbook

dbSNP uses standard SQL DDL(Data Definition Language) to create tables, views for those
tables, and indexes. There are many utilities available to generate table/index creation
statements from a database.

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

Hint

If your firewall blocks passive FTP, you might get an error message that reads: “Passive mode refused. Turning off passive
mode. No control connection for command: No such file or directory”. If this happens, try using a "smart" FTP client like
NCFTP (available on most UNIX machines). Smart FTP clients are better at auto-negotiating active/passive FTP
connections than are older FTP clients (e.g. Sun Solaris FTP).

Stepwise Procedure for Creating a Local Copy of dbSNP

1 Prepare the local area.
(check available space, etc.)
2 Download the schema files.
a Download the following files from the dbSNP shared_schema sub-directory:
dbSNP_main_table, dbSNP_main_index_constraint, and all the files in the
shared_data sub-directory. Together, the files from both of these sub-directories will
The NCBI Handbook

allow you to create tables and indices for the dbSNP_main_table.

b Go to the organism_schema subdirectory, and select the organism for which you wish
to create a database. For the purpose of this example, human_9606 has been selected.
Once human_9606 is selected, you will be directed to the human organism_schema
sub-directory. Download all of the files contained in this subdirectory.
c Go to the organism_data subdirectory, and select the organism for which you wish to
create a database. For the purpose of this example, human_9606 has been selected.
Once you select human_9606, you will be directed to the human organism_data sub-
directory. Download all of the files contained in this subdirectory.
A user must always down load the files located in the most recent versions of the shared_schema
and shared_data sub-directories in addition to any organism specific content.

Save all the files in your local directory and decompress them.
The NCBI Handbook

Hint:

On a UNIX operating system, use gunzip to decompress the files: dbSNP_main_table and
dbSNP_main_index_constraint.The files on the SNP FTP site are UNIX files. UNIX, MS-DOS and Macintosh text files
use different characters to indicate a new line. Load the appropriate new line conversion program for your system before
using bcp.

3 Create the dbSNP_main_table

a From the shared_schema sub-directory, use the dbSNP_main_table file to create
tables, and use the dbSNP_main_index_constraint files to create indices for the
dbSNP main database.
b Load all of the bcp files located in the shared_data sub-directory into the
dbSNP_main_table you just created using the data-loading tool of your database
server (e.g., bcp for Sybase). See the sample FTP protocol and sample Unix C Shell
script (below) for directions.
c Create indices by opening the dbSNP_main_index_constraint.sql file. If you are using
The NCBI Handbook

a database server that provides the isql utility, then use the following command:

isql -S <servername> -U usename -P password -i

dbSNP_main_index_constraint.sql

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

Hint:

The “.bcp” files in the shared_data and organism_data sub-directories may be loaded into most spreadsheet programs by
setting the field delimiter character to “tab”.

4 Create the organism specific database

Once the dbSNP_main_table has been created, create the organism specific database using the
files in your specific organism’s organism_schema and organism_data subdirectories.
Human_9606 will be used for the purpose of this example:
a Create the human_9606 database using the following files found in the human_9606
organism_schema: human_9606_table.sql.gz, human_9606_view.sql.gz,
human_9606_index_constraint.sql.gz,
and human_9606_foreign_key.sql.gz
b Load all of the bcp files located in the shared_data sub-directory into the human_9606
The NCBI Handbook

database you just created using the data-loading tool of your database server (e.g.,
bcp for Sybase). See the sample FTP protocol and sample Unix C shell script (below)
for directions.
Hint:

Use “ftp -i” to turn off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers to avoid having to hit “yes” to confirm
transfer hundreds of times.

Hint:

To avoid an overflow of your transaction log while using the bcp command option
(available in Sybase and SQL servers), select the "batch mode" by using the
command option: -b number of rows. For example, the command option -b 10000 will
cause a commit to the table every 10,000 rows.

5 Sample FTP Loading protocol.

a Type ftp -i ftp.ncbi.nih.gov (Use "anonymous" as user name and your email
The NCBI Handbook

as your password).
b Type: cd snp/database
c To get dbSNP_main for shared tables and shared data: Type ls to see if you are in
the directory with the right files. Then type “cd shared_schema” to get schema file
for dbSNP_main, and finally, type “cd shared_data” to get the data for
dbSNP_main.
d Type binary (to set binary transfer mode).
e Type mget *.gz (to initiate transfer). Depending on the speed of the connection,
this may take hours since the total transfer size is gigabytes in size and growing.
f To decompress the *.gz files, type gunzip *.gz. (Currently, the total size of the
uncompressed bcp files is over 10 GB).
6 Use scripts to automate data loading.
The NCBI Handbook

a Located in the loadscript subdirectory of the dbSNP FTP site, there is a file called
cmd.create_local_dbSNP.txt that provides a sample UNIX C shell script for creating
a local copy of dbSNP_main and a local copy of a specific organism database using
files in the shared_schema, and the organism_schema sub-directories.
b Also in the the loadscript subdirectory of the dbSNP FTP site, there is a file called
cmd.bulkinsert.txt that provides a sample UNIX C shell script for loading tables with
files located in shared_data and organism_data sub-directories.

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

7 Data integrity (creating a partial local copy of dbSNP).

dbSNP is a relational database. Each table has either a unique index or a primary key. Foreign
keys are not reinforced. There are advantages and a disadvantage to this approach. The
advantages are that this approach makes it easy to drop and re-create the table using the
dbSNP_main_table, which then makes it possible to create a partial local copy of dbSNP. For
example, if you are interested only in the original submitted SNP and their population
frequencies, and not in their map locations on NCBI genome contigs or GenBank Accession
numbers (both are huge tables), then these tables can be skipped (i.e., SNPContigLoc and
MapLink). Please remember that mapping tables such as SNPContigLoc will have a build ID
prefix and suffix included in its file name. (e.g. SNPContigLoc will be
b125_SNPContigLoc_35_1for SNP build 125, and NCBI contig build 35 version 1). Of course,
to select tables for a particular query, the contents of each table and the dbSNP entity
relationship (ER) diagram need to be understood. The disadvantage of un-reinforced references
is that either the stored procedures or the external code needs to be written to ensure the
The NCBI Handbook

referential integrity.

Appendix 1. dbSNP report formats.

ASN.1
The docsum_2005.asn file is the ASN structure definition file for ASN.1 and is located in the /
specs subdirectory of the dbSNP FTP site. The 00readme file, located in the main dbSNP FTP
directory, provides information about ASN.1 data structure and data exchange. ASN.1 text or
binary output can be converted into one or more of the following formats: flatfile, FASTA,
docsum, chromosome report, RS/SS, and XML. To convert from ASN.1 to another format,
request ASN.1 output from either the dbSNP FTP site or the dbSNP batch query pages, and
use dstool (located in the “bin” directory of the dSNP FTP site) to locally convert the output
into as many alternative formats as needed.

XML
The NCBI Handbook

The XML format provides query-specific information about refSNP clusters,

as well as cluster members in the NCBI SNP Exchange (NSE) format. The XML schema is
located in the docsum_2005.xsd file, which is housed in the /specs sub-directory of the dbSNP
FTP site. A human-readable text form of the NSE definitions can be found in docsum_2005.asn,
also located in the /specs sub-directory of the dbSNP FTP site.

FASTA: ss and rs
The FASTA report format provides the flanking sequence for each report of variation in dbSNP,
as well as all the submitted sequences that have no variation. ss FASTA contains all submitted
SNP sequences in FASTA format, whereas rs FASTA contains all the reference SNP sequences
in FASTA format. The FASTA data format is typically used for sequence comparisons using
BLAST. BLAST SNP is useful for conducting a few sequence comparisons in the FASTA
format, whereas multiple FASTA sequence comparisons will require the construction of a local
BLAST database of FASTA formatted data and the installation of a local stand-alone version
The NCBI Handbook

of BLAST.

rs docsum Flatfile
The rs docsum flatfile report is generated from the ASN.1 datafiles and is provided in the files
"/ASN1_flat/ds_flat_chXX.flat". Files are generated per chromosome (chXX in file name),as
with all of the large report dumps. Because flatfile reports are compact, they will not provide
you with as much information as the ASN.1 binary report, but they are useful for scanning

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

human SNP data manually because they provide detailed information at a glance. A full
description of the information provided in the rs docsum flatfile format is available in the
00readme file, located in the SNP directory of the SNP FTP site.

Chromosome Reports
The chromosome reports format provides an ordered list of RefSNPs in approximate
chromosome coordinates. Chromosome reports is a small file to download but contains a great
deal of information that might be helpful in identifying SNPs useful as markers on maps or
contigs because the coordinate system used in this format is the same as that used for the NCBI
genome Map Viewer. It should also be mentioned that the chromosome reports directory might
contain the multi/ file and/or the noton/ files. These files are lists (in chromosome report format)
of SNPs that hit multiple chromosomes in the genome and those that did not hit any
chromosomes in the genome, respectively. A full description of the information provided in
the chromosome reports format is available in the 00readme file, located in the SNP directory
The NCBI Handbook

of the SNP FTP site.

Genotype Report
The dbSNP Genotype report shows strain-specific genotype information for model organisms,
and contains a genotype detail link as well as a genotype XML link. The genotype detail link
will provide the user with submitter and genotype information for each of the submitted SNPs
in a refSNP cluster of interest, and the genotype XML link will allow the user to download the
reported data in the Genotype Exchange XML format, which can be read by either Internet
Explorer or Netscape browsers. XML dumps via the dbSNP ftp server provide the same content
for all genotype data in dbSNP by organism and chromosome.

Appendix 2. Rules and methodology for mapping

A cycle of MegaBLAST and Blast alignment to the NCBI genome assembly of an organism
is initiated either by the appearance of FASTA-formatted genome sequence for a new build of
the assembly or by the significant accrual of newly submitted SNP data for that organism.
The NCBI Handbook

Organism-specific Genome Mapping

The refSNP(rs) and submitted SNP (ss) mapping process is a multi-step, computer-based
procedure that begins when refSNP and submitted SNP FASTA sets are aligned to the most
recent genome assembly using BLAST or MegaBLAST. Repeat masking during this process
is accomplished automatically using the BLAST/MegaBLAST “Dust” option. To increase
alignment stringency, multiple cycles of BLAST/MegaBLAST are employed, where the word
size limit is reduced from 64 in the first cycle to16 by the final cycle. MegaBLAST parameters
are set to a default position with the exception of a seeding hit suppression parameter(e.g.
Parameter="-U F -F 'mL' -J T -X 10 -r 1 -q -3 -W 64 -m 11 -e 0.01")that
suppresses seeding hits but allows extension through regions of lowercase sequence. The
quality of each alignment is determined using an Alignment Profiling Function developed
specifically for this purpose. Alignments are selected based on a variable stringency threshold
that ranges from 70% alignment to 50% alignment. If the alignment profiling function indicates
The NCBI Handbook

the quality of the alignment is below a 70% alignment threshold, the alignment is discarded,
although an alignment threshold of 50% is sometimes used in case there are gaps in the
sequence.

The BLAST/MegaBLAST output of ASN.1 binary files of local alignments is then analyzed
by an algorithm (“Globalizer”) that sorts those local alignments that do not fit the dbSNP
alignment profile criteria (defined by position and proximity to one another) to create a “Global
Alignment” — a group of local alignments that lay close to one another on a sequence. If the

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

global alignment is greater than or equal to a pre-determined percentage of the flanking

sequence, it is accepted as a true alignment between the refSNP or submitted SNP and the
genome assembly. The Globalizer is especially helpful when refSNPs or submitted SNPs based
on mRNA sequence are being aligned to the genome assembly. In such a case, the
MegaBLAST/BLAST ASN.1 binary output contains many small alignments that will not map
to the genome assembly unless they undergo the “globalization” process.

The ASN.1 binary output of “Globalizer” is then processed by a program called “Hit Analyzer”.
This program defines the alleles and LOC types for each hit, and also determines the map
position by using the closest map positions on either side of the SNP to establish the hit location.
The text output of “Hit Analyzer” is then processed by the “Hit Filter”, which filters out
paralogous hits and uses multiple strategies to select only those SNPs that have the greatest
degree of alignment to a particular contig. The output from the “Hit Filter” is then placed into
a map.bcp file and is processed by the “SnpMapInfo” program, which creates an MD5 signature
for each SNP that is representative of all the positional information available for that SNP. The
The NCBI Handbook

MD5 signature is then placed in the SNP MAP INFO file, which is then loaded into dbSNP.

RefSNPs and submitted SNPs are analyzed against GenBank mRNA, RefSeq mRNA, and
GenBank clone accessions using a similar procedure to that described in the above paragraphs.

Once the all the results from previous steps are loaded into dbSNP, we perform cluster analysis
using a program called “SNPHitCluster” which analyses SNPs having the same signatures to
find candidates for clustering. If an MD5 signature for a particular SNP is different from the
MD5 signature of another SNP, then the hits for those two SNPs are different, and therefore,
the SNPs are unique and need not be clustered. If an MD5 signature of a particular SNP is the
same as that of another SNP, the two SNPs may have the same hit pattern, and if after further
analysis, the hit patterns are shown to be the same, the two SNPs will be clustered.

Appendix 3 Alignment profiling function

Mismatch weights are not equal along the flanking sequence, and should therefore be assigned
The NCBI Handbook

according to a profiling function. Because of the nature of the sequencing process, it is common
to have errors concentrated along the flanking sequence tails; we must, therefore, be mindful
of this consideration and not disregard alignments in the tails of the query sequence just because
of the high concentration of errors found there. Let us assume, therefore, that the distribution
of errors follows the rule of natural distribution starting on some point within the flank. This
can be approximated with the function F(x):
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Alignment Quality, “Q”, can be calculated using the following equation:

The NCBI Handbook

Having:
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The optimistic identity rate (so named since it doesn’t include mismatches) can be calculated
by the following function:

Mismatches will affect the numerator of the above function. A function to describe mismatches
will contain parts of unmovable discontinuations. Strictly speaking, we must take the integral
The NCBI Handbook

of this function in order to determine the mismatch effect, but due to the corpuscular nature of
the alignment, we can easily replace it with the sum of the elementary function:

where m is the mismatch position vector.

Thus, the final function:

The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook

Appendix 4. 3D structure neighbor analysis.

When a protein is known to have a structure neighbor, dbSNP projects the RefSNPs located
in that protein sequence onto sequence structures.

First, contig annotation results provide the SNP ID (snp_id), protein accession (protein_acc),
contig and SNP amino acid residue (residue), as well as the amino acid position (aa_position)
for a particular RefSNP. These data can be found in the dbSNP table, SNPContigLocusId.
FASTA sequence is then obtained for each protein accession using the program idfetch, with
the command line parameters set to:

-t 5 -dp -c 1 -q

We BLAST these sequences against the PDB database using “blastall” with the command line
parameters set to:
The NCBI Handbook

-p blastp -d pdb -i protein.fasta -o result.blast -e 0.0001 -m 3 -I T -v 1 -b

1

Each SNP position in the protein sequence is used to determine its corresponding amino acid
and amino acid position in the 3D structure from the BLAST result. These data are stored in
the SNP3D table.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1. The structure of the flanking sequence in dbSNP is a composite of bases either assayed
for variation or included from published sequence. We make the distinction to distinguish
regions of sequence that have been experimentally surveyed for variation (assay) from those
regions that have not been surveyed (flank). The minimum sequence length for a variation
definition (SNPassay) is 25 bp for both the 5′ and 3′ flanks and 100 bp overall to ensure an
The NCBI Handbook

adequate sequence for accurate mapping of the variation on reference genome sequence. (a)
Flanking sequence completely surveyed for variation. Both 5′ and 3′ flanking sequence can be
defined with 5′_assay and 3′_assay fields, respectively, when all flanking sequence was
examined for variation. This can occur in both experimental contexts (e.g., denaturing high-
pressure liquid chromatography or DNA sequencing) and computational contexts (e.g.,
analysis of BAC overlap sequence). (b) Partial survey of flanking sequence can occur when
detection methods examine only a region of sequence surrounding the variation that is shorter
than either the 25 bp per flank rule or the 100 bp overall length rule. In these experimental
designs (e.g., chip hybridization, enzymatic cleavage), we designate the experimental sequence
5′_assay or 3′_assay, and you can insert published sequence (usually from a gene reference
sequence) as 5′_flank or 3′_flank to construct a sequence definition that will satisfy the length
rules. (c) Unknown or no survey of flanking sequence can occur when variations are captured
from published literature without an indication of survey conditions. In these cases, the entire
flanking sequence is defined as 5′_flank and 3′_flank.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 2a. We organized the dbSNP homepage with links to documentation, FTP, and sub-
query pages on the left sidebar and a selection of query modules on the right sidebar.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 2b. We organized the dbSNP homepage with links to documentation, FTP, and sub-
query pages on the left sidebar and a selection of query modules on the right sidebar.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 3. The dbSNP build cycle starts with close of data for new submissions. We map all
data, including existing refSNP clusters and new submissions, to reference genome sequence
The NCBI Handbook

if available for the organism. Otherwise, we map them to non-redundant DNA sequences from
GenBank. We then use map data on co-occurrence of hit locations to either merge submissions
into existing clusters or to create new clusters. We then annotate the new non-redundant refSNP
(rs) set on reference sequences and dump the contents of dbSNP into a variety of comprehensive
formats on the dbSNP FTP site for release with the online build of the database.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 24
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 4. rs7412 has an average heterozygosity of 18.3% based on the frequency data provided
by seven submissions, and the cluster as a whole is validated because at least one of the
The NCBI Handbook

underlying submissions has been experimentally validated. rs7412 is annotated as a variation

feature on RefSeq contigs, mRNAs, and proteins. Pointers in the refSNP summary record direct
the user to additional information on six additional Web sites, through linkout URLs. These
Web sites may contain additional data that were used in the initial variation call, or it may be
additional phenotype or molecular data that indicate the function of the variation.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 25
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1. Method classes organize submissions by a general methodological or experimental approach to assaying
for variation in the DNA sequence.
Method class Class code in Sybase, ASN.1, and XML

Denaturing high pressure liquid chromatography (DHPLC) 1

DNA hybridization 2

Computational analysis 3

Single-stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP) 5

Other 6

Unknown 7

Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) 8

Direct DNA sequencing 9

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 26
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2. Population classes organize population samples by geographic region.

Population class Description Population class in Sybase, ASN.1, and XML

Central Asia Samples from Russia and its satellite Republics and 8
from nations bordering the Indian Ocean between East
Asia and the Persian Gulf regions.

Central/South Africa Samples from nations south of the Equator, Madagascar, 4

and neighboring island nations.

Central/South America Samples from Mainland Central and South America and 10
island nations of the western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico,
and Eastern Pacific.

East Asia Samples from eastern and south eastern Mainland Asia 6
and from Northern Pacific island nations.

Europe Samples from Europe north and west of Caucasus 5

Mountains, Scandinavia, and Atlantic islands.
The NCBI Handbook

Multi-National Samples that were designated to maximize measures of 1

heterogeneity or sample human diversity in a global
fashion. Examples include OEFNER|GLOBAL and the
CEPH repository.

North America All samples north of the Tropic of Cancer, including 9

defined samples of United States Caucasians, African
Americans, Hispanic Americans, and the NHGRI
polymorphism discovery resource (NCBI|NIHPDR).

North/East Africa and Middle East Samples collected from North Africa (including the 2
Sahara desert), East Africa (south to the Equator),
Levant, and the Persian Gulf.

Pacific Samples from Australia, New Zealand, Central and 7

Southern Pacific Islands, and Southeast Asian
peninsular/island nations.

Unknown Samples with unknown geographic provinces that are 11

not global in nature.

West Africa Sub-Saharan nations bordering the Atlantic north of the 3

Congo River and central/southern Atlantic island
The NCBI Handbook

nations.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 27
The NCBI Handbook

Table 3. Allele definitions define the class of the variation in dbSNP.

dbSNP variation classa, b Rules for assigning allele Sample allele definition Class code in Sybase, ASN.1, and
classes XMLc

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs)a Strictly defined as single base A/T 1

substitutions involving A, T,
C, or G.

Deletion/Insertion Polymorphisms (DIPs)a Designated using the full T/-/CCTA/G 2

sequence of the insertion as
one allele, and either a fully
defined string for the variant
allele or a “-” character to
specify the deleted allele.
This class will be assigned to
a variation if the variation
alleles are of different lengths
or if one of the alleles is
deleted (“-”).

Heterozygous sequencea
The NCBI Handbook

The term heterozygous is (heterozygous) 3

used to specify a region
detected by certain methods
that do not resolve the
polymorphism into a specific
sequence motif. In these
cases, a unique flanking
sequence must be provided to
define a sequence context for
the variation.

Microsatellite or short tandem repeat (STR)a Alleles are designated by (CAC)8/9/10/11 4

providing the repeat motif
and the copy number for each
allele. Expansion of the allele
repeat motif designated in
dbSNP into full-length
sequence will be only an
approximation of the true
genomic sequence because
many microsatellite markers
are not fully sequenced and
are resolved as size variants
The NCBI Handbook

only.

Named varianta Applies to insertion/deletion (alu) / - 5

polymorphisms of longer
sequence features, such as
retroposon dimorphism for
Alu or line elements. These
variations frequently include
a deletion “-” indicator for the
absent allele.

No-variationa Reports may be submitted for (NoVariation) 6

segments of sequence that are
assayed and determined to be
invariant in the sample.

Mixedb Mix of other classes 7

a
Multi-Nucleotide Polymorphism (MNP) Assigned to variations that GGA/AGT 8
are multi-base variations of a
single, common length.
Seven of the classes apply to both submissions of variations (submitted SNP assay, or ss#) and the non-redundant refSNP clusters (rs#'s) created
The NCBI Handbook

in dbSNP.
The “Mixed” class is assigned to refSNP clusters that group submissions from different variation classes.
Class codes have a numeric representation in the database itself and in the export versions of the data (ASN.1 and XML).

The Databases
 Page 28
The NCBI Handbook

Table 4. Validation status codes summarize the available validation data in assay reports and refSNP clusters.
Validation evidence Description Code in database Code in FTP Code in database Code in FTP
for ss# dumps for ss# for rs# dumps for rs#

Not validated For ss#, no batch update or 0 Not present 0a Not present
validation data, no
frequency data (or
frequency is 0 or 1). rs#
status code is OR'd from
the ss# codes.

Multiple reporting Status = 1 for an rs# with at 1 1b 1,0b 1

least two ss# numbers;
having at least one ss# is
validated by a non-
computational method.
For a ss#, status = 1 if the
method is non-
computational.
The NCBI Handbook

With frequency Frequency data is present 2 2 2 2

with a value between 0 and
1.

Both frequency For ss#, the method is non- 3 3 3/2 3

computational and
frequency data is present.
If the ss# is a single cluster
member, then the rs# code
is set to 2.

Submitter validation Submission of a batch 4 4 4 4

update or validation
section that reports a
second validation method
on the assay.
If the rs# has a single ss# with code 1, then rs# is set to code 0.
For a single member rs where the ss# validation status = 1, the rs# validation status is set to 0.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
Page 29

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook
 Page 30
The NCBI Handbook

Table 5. Function codes for refSNPs in gene features. a

Functional class Description Database code

Locus region Variation is within 2 Kb 5′ or 500 bp 3′ of a gene feature (on either strand), but the variation is not 1
in the transcript for the gene. This class is indicated with an “L” in graphical summaries.

As of build 127, function code 1 has been modified into a two digit code that will more precisely
indicate the location of a SNP. The two digit code has function code 1as the first digit, which will
keep the meaning as described above, and 3 or 5 as the second digit, which will indicate whether
the SNP is 3’ or 5’ to the region of interest. See function codes 13 and 15 in this table.

Coding Variation is in the coding region of the gene. This class is assigned if the allele-specific class is 2
unknown. This class is indicated with a C in graphical summaries. This code was retired as of
dbSNP build 127.

Coding-synon The variation allele is synonymous with the contig codon in a gene. An allele receives this class 3
when substitution and translation of the allele into the codon makes no change to the amino acid
specified by the reference sequence. A variation is a synonymous substitution if all alleles are
classified as contig reference or coding-synon. This class is indicated with a C in graphical
summaries.
The NCBI Handbook

Coding-nonsynon The variation allele is nonsynonymous for the contig codon in a gene. An allele receives this class 4
when substitution and translation of the allele into the codon changes the amino acid specified by
the reference sequence. A variation is a nonsynonymous substitution if any alleles are classified as
coding-nonsynon. This class is indicated with a C or N in graphical summaries.

As of build 128, function code 4 has been modified into a two digit code that will more precisely
indicate the nonsynonymous nature of the SNP. The two digit code has function code 4 as the first
digit, which will keep its original meaning, and 1, 2, or 4 as the second digit, which will indicate
whether the SNP is nonsense, missense, or frameshift. See function codes 41, 42, and 44 in this table

mRNA-UTR The variation is in the transcript of a gene but not in the coding region of the transcript. This class 5
is indicated by a “T” in graphical summaries.

As of build 127, function code 5 has been modified into a two digit code that will more precisely
indicate the location of a SNP. The two digit code has function code 5 as the first digit, which will
keep its original meaning, and 3 or 5 as the second digit, which will indicate whether the SNP is 3’
or 5’ to the region of interest. See function codes 53 and 55 in this table.

Intron The variation is in the intron of a gene but not in the first two or last two bases of the intron. This 6
class is indicated by an L in graphical summaries.

Splice-site The variation is in the first two or last two bases of the intron. This class is indicated by a “T” in 7
The NCBI Handbook

graphical summaries.

As of build 127, function code 7 has been modified into a two digit code that will more precisely
indicate the location of a SNP. The two digit code has function codes 7 as the first digit, which will
keep its original meaning, and 3 or 5 as the second digit, which will indicate whether the SNP is 3’
or 5’ to the region of interest. See function codes 73 and 75 in this table.

Contig-reference The variation allele is identical to the contig nucleotide. Typically, one allele of a variation is the 8
same as the reference genome. The letter used to indicate the variation is a C or N, depending on
the state of the alternative allele for the variation.

Coding-exception The variation is in the coding region of a gene, but the precise location cannot be resolved because 9
of an error in the alignment of the exon. The class is indicated by a C in graphical summaries.

NearGene–3 Function Code 13, where: 13

1=locus region (see function code 1 in this table)
3=SNP is 3’to and 0.5kb away from gene

NearGene–5 Function Code 15, where: 15

1=locus region (see function code 1 in this table)
5= SNP is 5’ to 2kb away from gene

Coding- Function Code 41, where:4 =Coding- nonsynonymous (see function code 4 in this table) 1 = 41
The NCBI Handbook

nonsynonymous nonsense Nonsense (changes to the Stop codon)

Coding- Function Code 42, where:4 =Coding- nonsynonymous (see function code 4 in this table) 2 = missense 42
nonsynonymous missense (alters codon to make an altered amino acid in protein product)

Coding- Function Code 44, where:4 =Coding- nonsynonymous (see function code 4 in this table) 4 = 44
nonsynonymous frameshift frameshift (alters codon to make an altered amino acid in protein product)

UTR–3 Function code 53, where: 53

5= UTR (untranslated region: see function code 5 in this table)3= SNP located in the 3’ untranslated
region

UTR–5 Function code 55, where: 55

5= UTR (untranslated region: see function code 5 in this table)5(as the second digit)= SNP located
in the 5’ untranslated region The Databases
Splice–3 Function code 73, where: 73
7=splice site (see function code 7 in this table)3=3’ acceptor dinucleotide

Splice–5 Function code 75, where: 75

7=splice site (see function code 7 in this table)5=5’ donor dinucleotide
 Page 31
The NCBI Handbook

Most gene features are defined by the location of the variation with respect to transcript exon boundaries. Variations in coding regions, however, have
a functional class assigned to each allele for the variation because these classes depend on allele sequence.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO): A Gene Expression and

Hybridization Repository
[Chapter 6]

Ron Edgar
Alex Lash

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) project was initiated at NCBI in 1999 in response to the
growing demand for a public repository for data generated from high-throughput microarray
experiments. GEO has a flexible and open design that allows the submission, storage, and retrieval
of many types of data sets, such as those from high-throughput gene expression, genomic
hybridization, and antibody array experiments. GEO was never intended to replace lab-specific gene
expression databases or laboratory information management systems (LIMS), both of which usually
cater to a particular type of data set and analytical method. Rather, GEO complements these resources
by acting as a central, molecular abundance–data distribution hub. GEO is available on the World
Wide Web at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/geo.

Site Description
High-throughput hybridization array- and sequencing-based experiments have become
increasingly common in molecular biology laboratories in recent years (1–4). These techniques
The NCBI Handbook

are used to measure the molecular abundance of mRNA, genomic DNA, and proteins in
absolute or relative terms. The main attraction of these techniques is their highly parallel nature;
large numbers of simultaneous molecular sampling events are performed under very similar
conditions. This means that time and resources are saved, and complex biological systems can
be represented in a more holistic manner. Furthermore, the development of tissue arrays means
that it is possible to analyze, in parallel, the gene expression of large numbers of tumor tissue
samples from patients at different stages of cancer development (5).

Because of the plethora of measuring techniques for molecular abundance in use, our primary
goal in creating the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) was to cover the broadest possible
spectrum of these techniques and remain flexible and responsive to future trends, rather than
choosing only one of these techniques or setting rigid requirements and standards for entry. In
taking this approach, however, we recognize that there are obvious, inherent limitations to
functionality and analysis that can be provided on such heterogeneous data sets.

This chapter is both more current and more detailed than the previous literature report on GEO
The NCBI Handbook

(6). However, more detailed descriptions, tools, and news releases are available on the GEO
Web site.

Design and Implementation

The three principle components (or entities) of GEO are modeled after the three organizational
units common to high-throughput gene expression and array-based methodologies. These
entities are called platforms, samples and series (Figure 1; Table 1). A platform is, essentially,
a list of probes that defines what set of molecules may be detected in any experiment using
that platform. A sample describes the set of molecules that are being probed and references a
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

single platform used to generate molecular abundance data. Each sample has one, and only
one, parent platform that must be defined previously. A series organizes samples into the
meaningful data sets that make up an experiment and are bound together by a common attribute.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

GEO design
The entity–relationship diagram for GEO.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Entity prefixes, types, and subtypes in the GEO database
Accession prefix Entity type Subtype Description

GPL Platform Commercial nucleotide array Commercially available nucleotide

hybridization array

Commercial tissue array Commercially available tissue array

Commercial antibody array Commercially available antibody array

Non-commercial nucleotide array Nucleotide array that is not commercially

available

Non-commercial tissue array Tissue array that is not commercially

available

Non-commercial antibody array Antibody array that is not commercially

available
The NCBI Handbook

GSM Sample Dual channel Dual mRNA target sample hybridization

Single channel Single mRNA target sample hybridization

Dual channel genomic Dual DNA target sample hybridization, e.g.,

array CGH

SAGE Serial analysis of gene expression

GSE Series Time–course Time–course experiment, e.g., yeast cell

cycle

Dose–response Dose–response experiment, e.g., response to

drug dosage

Other ordered Ordered, but unspecified

Other Unordered
The NCBI Handbook

The GEO repository is a relational database, which required that some fundamental
implementation decisions were made:

(a) GEO does not store raw hybridization-array image data, although “reference” images of
less than 100 Kb may be stored. This decision was based on an assertion that most users of the
data within the GEO repository would not be equipped to use raw image data (7); although
some may disagree, this means that repository storage requirements are reduced roughly by a
factor of 20.

(b) We decided to use a different storage mechanism for data and metadata. Within the GEO
repository, metadata are stored in designated fields within the database table. However, data
from the entire set of probe attributes (for each platform) and molecular abundance
measurements (for each sample) are stored as a single, text-compressed BLOB. This mode of
data storage allows great flexibility in the amount and type of information stored in this BLOB.
It allows any number of supplementary attributes or measurements to be provided by the
submitter, including optional or submitter-defined information. For example, a microarray (the
The NCBI Handbook

platform) consisting of several thousand spots (the probes) would have a set of probe attributes,
some of which are defined by GEO. The GEO-defined attributes include, for each probe, the
position within the array and biological reagent contents of each probe such as a GenBank
Accession number, open reading frame (ORF) name, and clone identifier, as well as any
number of submitter-defined columns. As another example, the set of probe-target
measurements given in the data from a sample may contain the final, relevant abundance value

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

of the probe defined in its platform, as well as any other GEO-defined (e.g., raw signal,
background signal) and submitter-defined data.

Once a platform, sample, or series is defined by a submitter, an Accession number (i.e., a

unique, stable identifier) is assigned (Figure 2). Whether a GEO Accession number refers to a
platform, sample, or series can be understood by the Accession number “prefix”. Platforms
have the prefix GPL, samples have the prefix GSM, and series have the prefix GSE.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

GEO implementation example

An actual example of three samples referencing one platform and contained in a single series.
Retrieving Data
A GEO Accession number is required to retrieve data from the GEO repository database (Figure
3). An Accession number may be acquired in any number of ways, including direct reference,
such as from a publication citing data deposited to GEO, or through a query interface, such as
through NCBI's Entrez ProbeSet interface (covered below).
The NCBI Handbook

Given a valid GEO Accession number, the Accession Display tool available on the GEO Web
site provides a number of options for the retrieval and display of repository contents (see Box
1).

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Box 1
GEO Web site Accession Display tool
It is very easy to use the Accession Display tool:
1 Type in a valid public or privatea GEO Accession number in the top GEO
accession box.
2 Select desired display options.
3 Press the Go button.
Three types of display options are currently available:
• Scope allows you to display the GEO accession(s) that you want to target for
display. You may display the GEO accession, which is typed into the GEO
accession box itself (Self), or any (Platform, Samples, or Series) or all (Family)
of the accessions related to an accession. GEO platforms (GPL prefix) may have
The NCBI Handbook

related samples and, through those related samples, related series. GEO samples
(GSM prefix) will always have one related platform and may have multiple, related
series. GEO series (GSE prefix) will have at least one related sample and, through
those related samples, will have at least one related platform. The Family setting
will retrieve all accessions (of different types) related to self (including self).
• Format allows you to display the GEO accession in human-readable, linked HTML
form or in machine-readable, SOFT form (Box 2).
• Amount allows you to control the amount of data that you will see displayed.
Brief displays the accession's metadata only. Quick displays the accession's
metadata and the first 20 rows of its data set. Full displays the accession's metadata
and the full data set. Data omits the accession's metadata, showing only the links
to other accessions as well as the full data set.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

aTo view one's own private, currently unreleased accessions, login with username and password at the bottom login bar.

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

GEO retrieval statistics

Daily usage statistics evaluated over a 4-week period January 24 to February 20, 2002. Web
The NCBI Handbook

server GET (blue) and POST (magenta) calls are evaluated for URL http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi. GET calls correspond roughly to links being
followed from other Web pages, most likely following Entrez ProbeSet queries. POST calls
roughly correspond to direct queries by Accession number. The spike of activity seen from
January 29 to January 31 represents retrievals by one IP address and most likely represent an
automated “Web crawler” pull.
Depositing Data
There are several formats in which data can be deposited and retrieved from GEO. For deposit:
(1) a file containing an ASCII-encoded text table of data can be uploaded, and metadata fields
can be interactively entered through a series of Web forms; or (2) both data and metadata for
one or more platforms, samples, or series can be uploaded directly in a format we call Simple
Omnibus Format in Text, or SOFT (Box 2).

Box 2
The NCBI Handbook

SOFT
Simple Omnibus Format in Text (SOFT) is a line-based, ASCII text format that allows for
the representation of multiple GEO platforms, samples, and series in one file. In SOFT,
metadata appear as label-value pairs and are associated with the tab-delimited text tables
of platforms and samples. SOFT has been designed for easy manipulation by readily
available line-scanning software and may be quite readily produced from, and imported

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

into, spreadsheet, database, and analysis software. More information about SOFT and the
submission process is available from the GEO Web site.

Interactive and direct modes of communication are available for new data submissions and
updating data submissions. The interactive Web form route is straightforward and most suited
for occasional submissions of a relatively small number of samples. Bulk submissions of large
data sets may be rapidly incorporated into GEO via direct deposit of SOFT formatted data.

Submissions may be held private for a maximum of 6 months; this policy allows data release
concordant with manuscript publication. Such submissions are given a final Accession number
at the time of submission, which may be quoted in a publication.

Currently, submissions are validated according to a limited set of criteria (see the GEO Web
site for more details). Submissions are scanned by our staff to assure that the submissions are
organized correctly and include meaningful information. It is entirely up to the submitter to
The NCBI Handbook

make the data useful to others.

A quarterly, cumulative graph of the number of individual molecular abundance measurements

in public submissions made through the first quarter of 2002 is shown in Figure 4.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

GEO submission statistics

Cumulative individual sample measurements submitted to GEO are shown. Data are presented
by quarter since operations began on July 25, 2000.
Search and Integration
The NCBI Handbook

Extensive indexing and linking on the data in GEO are performed periodically and can be
queried through Entrez ProbeSet (Box 3). Many users of Entrez will recognize this interface
as similar to that of other popular NCBI resources such as PubMed and GenBank. As with any
Entrez database, a Boolean phrase may be entered and restricted to any number of supported
attribute fields (Table 2). Matches are linked to the full GEO entry as well as to other Entrez
databases, currently Nucleotide, Taxonomy, and PubMed, as well as related Entrez ProbeSet
entries. (See Chapter 15 for more details.) Entrez ProbeSet is accessible through the Entrez
Web site as one of the drop-down menu selections.

Box 3
Entrez ProbeSet indexing and linking process
The basic unit (defined by a unique identifier, or UID, in Entrez parlance) in Entrez ProbeSet
is the GEO sample, fused with its affiliated platform and series information. The indexing
process iterates through all platforms in the GEO database, extracting metadata and the data
The NCBI Handbook

table and fishing for any sequence-based identifiers such as GenBank Accession, ORFs,
Clone IDs, or SAGE tags. Each sample belonging to that platform is in turn assigned a new
UID and indexed with the above platform information plus any related series metadata
(Table 2).
GenBank Accessions, PubMed references, and taxonomy information are also linked to the
appropriate Entrez databases for cross-reference and appear in the Links section of the

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

display. Neighbors (related intra-Entrez database links) are generated for UIDs sharing the
same GEO platform or series.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2
Entrez ProbeSet fields
Field name Description

Accession GEO accession identifier

Author Author of GEO sample

CloneID Clone identifier of GEO sample's platform

Country Country of GEO sample's submitter

Email email of submitter

GBAcc GenBank Accession of GEO sample's platform

Institute Institute of GEO sample's submitter

Keyword Keyword of GEO sample

The NCBI Handbook

ORF Open reading frame (ORF) designation of GEO sample's platform

Organism Organism of GEO sample and its parent taxonomic nodes

RefSeq RefSeq accession of GEO sample's platform

SAGEtag Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) 10-bp tag of GEO sample

Subtype Subtype of GEO sample

Target ref Target reference of GEO sample

Target src Target source of GEO sample

Text Word Word from description of GEO sample or sample's platform, and word from the titles of sample and its platform

Title Titles of GEO sample and its platform

Example of Retrieving Data

Because samples are oftentimes organized into meaningful data sets within series, an example
of retrieving a series and all the data of its associated samples and platform(s) is illustrative of
The NCBI Handbook

the retrieval capabilities of the GEO Web site. For this example, to select a series of interest,
we scan down a list of series in the GEO repository. However, to arrive at our series of interest,
we could have just as well performed an Entrez ProbeSet query and followed GEO accession
links to a sample and then to its related series, or followed links from PubMed to Entrez
ProbeSet, and then to GEO. A step-by-step example of selecting a series of data and retrieving
the data for this series from the GEO repository follows:
1 Select the linked number of public series from the table of Repository Contents given
on the GEO homepage:
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

2 Scan down the list of public series in the GEO repository and select GSE27, on
sporulation in yeast:

3 The description of GSE27 on the Accession Display allows a summary assessment

of the data. The data set can be downloaded in SOFT format:
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

4 In the Accession Display options, select Scope:Family, Format:SOFT, and

Amount:Full and then press the go button:

5 A browser dialog states that it took 19 seconds to download the 5 MB SOFT file of
The NCBI Handbook

data and metadata for one series (GSE27), seven samples (GSM992 to GSM1000),
and one platform (GPL67).
The NCBI Handbook

Future Directions
The GEO resource is under constant development and aims to improve its indexing, linking,
searching, and display capabilities to allow vigorous data mining. Because the data sets stored
The NCBI Handbook

within GEO are from heterogeneous techniques and sources, they are not necessarily
comparable. For this reason, we have defined a ProbeSet to be a collection of GEO samples
that contains comparable data. The selection of GEO samples into ProbeSets is necessary
before integrating data in the GEO repository into other NCBI resources (see Chapter 15,
Chapter 16, and Chapter 20), as well as for developing useful display tools for these data (Figure
5).

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Constellation of NCBI gene expression resources

Anticipated development of gene expression resources at NCBI is shown. Blue spheres
represent Web sites, orange cylinders represent primary NCBI databases, green cylinders
represent secondary databases, and yellow cylinders represent tertiary NCBI interface
databases. Arrows represent data flow, and lines represent Web site links.
Frequently Asked Questions
1
How do I submit my data?
The NCBI Handbook

To submit data, an identity within the GEO resource must first be established. On first login,
authentication and contact information must be provided. Authentication information
(username and password) is used to identify users making submissions and updates to
submissions. Contact information is displayed when repository contents are retrieved by others.
This information is entered only once and can be updated at any time.

2
Is there a “hold until date” feature in GEO?

Yes. This feature allows a submitter to submit data to GEO and receive a GEO Accession
number before the data become public. There is currently a 6-month limit to this hold period.
All private data are publicly released eventually.

3
What kinds of data will GEO accept?
The NCBI Handbook

GEO was designed around the common features of most of the high-throughput gene
expression and array-based measuring technologies in use today. These technologies include
hybridization filter, spotted microarray, high-density oligonucleotide array, serial analysis of
gene expression, and Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) and protein (antibody)
arrays but may be expanded in the future.

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

Does GEO archive raw data images?

No. However, a reference image will be optionally accepted (limited to 100 Kb in size in JPEG
format). In combination with optional references to horizontal and vertical coordinates, this
image can be used to provide the user of the data with a qualitative assessment of the data.

5
Are there any Quality Assurance (QA) measurements that are required by GEO?

Not at this time. These requirements may be added in the future.

6
How can I submit QA measurements to GEO?

QA measurements are currently optional. If QA measurements are performed at the image-

analysis step, these can be submitted as additional sample data.
The NCBI Handbook

7
How can I make corrections to data that I have already submitted?

By logging in with a username and password, an option to update a previous submission or

your contact information is given. Accession updates can also be made through a link from the
Accession Display after logging in. Updating the data of an already existing and valid GEO
Accession number will cause a new version of that data element to be created. Alterations of
metadata will not create a new version. All of the various versions of a data element will remain
in the database.

8
How are submitters authenticated?

In their first submission to GEO, submitters will be asked to select a username and password.
The NCBI Handbook

This username and password can be used to submit additional data in the future without
reentering contact information, as well as to authenticate the submitter when updating or
resubmitting data elements under an existing GEO Accession number.

9
How do I get data from GEO?

You need not login to retrieve data. All the data are available for downloading. NCBI places
no restrictions on the use of data whatsoever but does not guarantee that no restrictions exist
from others. You should carefully read NCBI's data disclaimer, available on the GEO Web
site.

10
What kind of queries and retrievals will be possible in GEO?

Currently, there are three ways to retrieve submissions. One way is by entering a valid GEO
The NCBI Handbook

Accession number into the query box on the header bar of this page; this will take you to the
Accession Display. Another is to use the platform, sample, and series lists, located on the GEO
Statistics page. Sophisticated queries of GEO data and linking to other Entrez databases can
be accomplished by using Entrez ProbeSet.

11
What does Scope mean in the Accession Display?

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

GEO platforms (GPL prefix) may have related samples and, through those related samples,
related series. GEO samples (GSM prefix) will always have one related platform and may have
multiple, related series. GEO series (GSE prefix) will have at least one related sample and,
through those related samples, will have at least one related platform. The Family setting will
retrieve all accessions (of different types) related to self (including Self). Please see Box 1 for
more details.

12
What is SOFT?

SOFT stands for Simple Omnibus Format in Text. SOFT is an ASCII text format that was
designed to be a machine-readable representation of data retrieved from, or submitted to, GEO.
SOFT output is obtained by using the Accession Display, and SOFT can be used to submit
data to GEO. Please see Box 2 for more details.
The NCBI Handbook

13
What does the word “taxon” mean?

The NCBI's Taxonomy group has constructed and maintains a taxonomic hierarchy based upon
the most recent information, which is described in Chapter 4 of this Handbook.

Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the work of Vladimir Soussov, as well as the entire NCBI Entrez
team, especially Grisha Starchenko, Vladimir Sirotinin, Alexey Iskhakov, Anton Golikov, and
Pramod Paranthaman. We thank Jim Ostell for guidance, Lou Staudt for discussions during
our initial planning for GEO, and the extreme patience shown by Brian Oliver, Wolfgang
Huber, and Gavin Sherlock when making the first data submissions. Admirable patience was
also exhibited by Al Zhong during the development of the direct deposit validator. Special
thanks go to Manish Inala and Wataru Fujibuchi for their continuing work on future features
and tools.
The NCBI Handbook

Contributors
Table 3 shows a collection of data sets from various sources. Ron Edgar, Michael Domrachev,
Tugba Suzek, Tanya Barrett, and Alex E. Lash contributed to this NCBI resource.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

Table 3
Selective data set survey
Source Accessions Description

NHGRI melanoma study GSE1 This series represents a group of cutaneous

malignant melanomas and unrelated controls
that were clustered based on correlation
coefficients calculated through a comparison
of gene expression profiles.

Stanford Microarray Database GSE4 to GSE9, and GSE18 to GSE29 These series represent microarray studies
from the public collection of the Stanford
Microarray Database (SMD).

Cancer Genome Anatomy Project GSE14 This series represents the Cancer Genome
Anatomy Project SAGE library collection.
Libraries contained herein were either
produced through CGAP funding or donated
to CGAP.
The NCBI Handbook

Affymetrix Gene Chips™ GPL71 to GPL101 These platforms represent the latest probe
attributes of the commercially available
Affymetrix Gene Chips™ high density
oligonucleotide arrays.

National Children's Medical Center Microarray Center GSM1131 to GSM1345 These samples represent direct deposits of
data derived from Affymetrix Gene Chip™
arrays and come from the Microarray Center
database at the National Children's Medical
Center.

References
1. Schena M, Shalon D, Davis RW, Brown PO. Quantitative monitoring of gene expression patterns with
a complementary DNA microarray. Science 1995;270:467–470. [PubMed: 7569999]
2. Lipshutz RJ, Morris D, Chee M, Hubbell E, Kozal MJ, Shah N, Shen N, Yang R, Fodor SP. Using
oligonucleotide probe arrays to access genetic diversity. Biotechniques 1995;19:442–447. [PubMed:
7495558]
3. Velculescu VE, Zhang L, Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW. Serial analysis of gene expression. Science
The NCBI Handbook

1995;270:484–487. [PubMed: 7570003]

4. Emili AQ, Cagney G. Large-scale functional analysis using peptide or protein arrays. Nat Biotechnol
2000;18:393–397. [PubMed: 10748518]
5. Leighton S, Torhorst J, Mihatsch MJ, Sauter G, Kallioniemi OP. Tissue microarrays for high-
throughput molecular profiling of tumor specimens. Nat Med 1998;4:844–847. [PubMed: 9662379]
6. Edgar R, Domrachev M, Lash AE. Gene Expression Omnibus: NCBI gene expression and hybridization
array data repository. Nucleic Acids Research 2002;30:207–210. [PubMed: 11752295]99122
7. Brazma A, Hingamp P, Quackenbush J, Sherlock G, Spellman P, Stoeckert C, Aach J, Ansorge W,
Ball CA, Causton HC, Gaasterland T, Glenisson P, Holstege FC, Kim IF, Markowitz V, Matese JC,
Parkinson H, Robinson A, Sarkans U, Schulze-Kremer S, Stewart J, Taylor R, Vilo J, Vingron M.
Minimum information about a microarray experiment (MIAME)—toward standards for microarray
data. Nat Genet 2001;29:365–371. [PubMed: 11726920]
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM): A Directory of

Human Genes and Genetic Disorders
[Chapter 7]

Donna Maglott
Joanna S. Amberger
Ada Hamosh
The NCBI Handbook

Summary
*
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIMTM ) is a timely, authoritative compendium of
bibliographic material and observations on inherited disorders and human genes. It is the
continuously updated electronic version of Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM). MIM was last
published in 1998 (1) and is authored and edited by Dr. Victor A. McKusick and a team of science
writers, editors, scientists, and physicians at The Johns Hopkins University and around the world
(2). Curation of the database and editorial decisions take place at The Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine. OMIM provides authoritative free text overviews of genetic disorders and gene
loci that can be used by clinicians, researchers, students, and educators. In addition, OMIM has many
rich connections to relevant primary data resources such as bibliographic, sequence, and map
information.

Content and Access

The NCBI Handbook

OMIM Entries
OMIM comprises descriptive, full-text MIM entries, a tabular Synopsis of the (Human Gene
Map) that includes the Morbid Map, clinical synopses, and mini-MIMs.

OMIM entries are authored and edited by experts in the field and by the OMIM staff, based
on information in the published literature. All entries are assigned a unique, stable, six-digit
ID number and provide names and symbols used for the disorder and/or gene, a literature-based
description, citations, contributor information, and creation and editing dates. Because MIM
is derived from the primary literature, the text is replete with citations and links to PubMed.
OMIM authors create entries for each unique gene or Mendelian disorder for which sufficient
information exists and do not wittingly create more than one entry for each gene locus.

MIM is organized into autosomal, X-linked, Y-linked, and mitochondrial catalogs, and MIM
numbers are assigned sequentially within each catalog (Table 1). The kinds of information that
may be included in MIM entries are approved name and symbol (obtained from the HUGO
The NCBI Handbook

Nomenclature Committee), alternative names and symbols in common use, and a text
description of the disease or gene. Many of the longest entries and most new entries in MIM
have headings within the text that may include Clinical Features, Inheritance, Population
Genetics, Heterogeneity, Genotype/Phenotype Correlations, Cloning, Gene Structure, Gene
Function, Mapping, and more. Information on selected disease-causing mutations is contained
in the Allelic Variant section of the entry describing the gene.

*Trademark status. OMIMTM and Online Mendelian Inheritance in ManTM are trademarks of The Johns Hopkins University.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
The OMIM numbering system
MIM number rangea Explanation

100000-199999 Autosomal loci or phenotypes (entries created before May 15, 1994)

200000-299999 Autosomal loci or phenotypes (entries created before May 15, 1994)

300000-399999 X-linked loci or phenotypes

400000-499999 Y-linked loci or phenotypes

500000-599999 Mitochondrial loci or phenotypes

600000- Autosomal loci or phenotypes (entries created after May 15, 1994)
a
MIM numbers are frequently preceded by a symbol. An asterisk (*) before a MIM number indicates that the entry describes a distinct gene or
phenotype and that the mode of inheritance of the phenotype has been proved (in the judgment of the authors and editors) and that the phenotype
described is not known to be determined by a gene represented by other asterisked entries in MIM.
A number sign (#) before a MIM number describing a phenotype indicates that the phenotype is caused by mutation in a gene represented by
The NCBI Handbook

another entry and usually in any of two or more genes represented by other entries. The number sign is also used for phenotypes that result from
specific chromosomal aberrations, such as Down syndrome, and for contiguous gene syndromes, such as Langer-Giedion syndrome. Whenever a
number sign is used, the reason is stated at the outset of the entry.
The absence of an asterisk (or other sign) preceding the number indicates that the distinctness of the phenotype as a mendelizing entity or the
characterization of the gene in the human is not established.

With the increasing complexity of biological information, OMIM makes a critical contribution
by distilling what is known about a gene or disease into a single, searchable entry. The rich
text of the OMIM entry, along with the source reference citations, make it easy to retrieve data
of interest. The OMIM entry can then serve as a gateway to other sources of related information
via the many curated and computed links within each entry.

The OMIM Gene Map

The OMIM Synopsis of the Human Gene Map is a tabular listing of the genes and loci
represented in MIM ordered pter to qter from chromosome 1–22, X, and Y. The information
in the map includes the cytogenetic location, symbol, title, MIM number, method of mapping,
The NCBI Handbook

comments, associated disorders and their MIM numbers, and the map location of the mouse
ortholog. Links are provided from the cytogenetic location to the human Map Viewer, from
MIM numbers to OMIM entries, and from mouse map locations to the Mouse Genome
Database (MGD).

The Synopsis of the human gene map has also been sorted alphabetically by disorder and is
referred to as the Morbid Map.

Access
OMIM can be found either by direct query via Entrez, from other data resources within NCBI
that connect to OMIM directly (for example, LocusLink or UniGene), or through Entrez cross-
indexing (for example, from a PubMed abstract of an article cited in an OMIM entry). OMIM
is indexed for retrieval in Entrez using a weighted system so that if the query term(s) appears
in the title of a MIM entry, it will appear at the top of the retrieval list. Field restrictions are
supported for some types of information, or one can use the Limits page to restrict a search
The NCBI Handbook

(Figure 1). There are also several format options for viewing a retrieval set that may affect
which entries are displayed (Box 1).

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Limitsoptions for searching OMIM in Entrez

Queries can also be entered in the query box shown on all Entrez database pages, selecting
OMIM as the database in the Search option. The Preview/Index, History, Clipboard, or
Cubby functions can also be used for OMIM, as for the rest of Entrez.

The Gene Map can be accessed from an individual OMIM entry via the cytogenetic location
The NCBI Handbook

displayed when appropriate under the entry titles. The Gene Map may also be queried
directly. When queried directly, the first entry that matches the query is shown in the top row
of the table, followed by 19 entries ordered by cytogenetic location. The Find Next button can
be used to find additional gene map entries that match the query.

Guide to OMIM Pages

Query Bar
OMIM is queried via a standard Entrez query bar. The mechanics of selecting entries to display,
how to display them, and identifying related entries either within Entrez or from external
resources is also according to the Entrez/LinkOut standard. The display options (Box 1) allow
the user to format results in several ways. A useful function particular to OMIM is the option
to display Allelic Variants, Clinical Synopsis, or mini-MIM views for a retrieval set.

Box 1
The NCBI Handbook

Display options for viewing OMIM query results

Title (default)
Details
Clinical Synopsis
Allelic Variants

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

mini-MIM
ASN.1
LinkOut
Related Entries
Genome Links
Nucleotide Links
Protein Links
PubMed Links
SNP Links
Structure Links
The NCBI Handbook

UniSTS Links
Obtaining multiple views of a query result:
1. Enter query term or terms (example: renal failure hypertension).
2. Default display is Titles.
3. Select Clinical Synopsis and click on Display at the left to see the Clinical Synopsis
section of all entries that have them.
4. Similarly, select mini-MIM or Allelic Variants.
NOTE: In the same bar, the number of entries to display and the format in which to display
them can be configured by use of the Show and Text buttons, respectively.

OMIM Navigation
The NCBI Handbook

The OMIM homepage and the search results pages share the same navigational links to the
advanced query page (Gene Map, Morbid Map), Help documents, FAQs, statistics, and related
resources.

When viewing the text of an OMIM entry, however, the navigational links serve as an electronic
table of contents. The section headings within the entry are listed similar to a table of contents,
and selecting one moves the display to that section. Within an entry, selecting the MIM # link
takes you back to the top of the entry.

OMIM staff actively contributes to the curation of data in LocusLink. Thus, if the MIM number
is represented in LocusLink, a reciprocal LocusLink link is provided in the section to the left.
Other links provided by the LocusLink collaboration may also be listed in this section, e.g.,
links to Nomenclature, Reference Sequences, or UniGene clusters that are specific to the
subject OMIM entry.
The NCBI Handbook

The sequence links in the LocusLink section may be different from the Entrez indexing links
available via the Links link at the top right of an entry. The Entrez indexing links result
indirectly from the references in the OMIM entry and may include related sequences in other
species, for example. Thus, OMIM pages allow two levels of sequence connection: the specific
ones in the left section under LocusLink and the indirect but still informative ones through
Entrez indexing link at the upper right. More information on OMIM link types can be found
in the Help documents.

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

OMIM entries may also contain a link to LinkOut for resources external to NCBI (see Chapter
17). Some of these external resouces are curated by OMIM staff, in which case they are
displayed by name. Others can be seen either by selecting LinkOut in the Links pull-down
menu or by selecting the LinkOut display option in the query bar.

Entrez Links
At the top of any report page, or associated with each entry in the query result page, are the
links to related data generated from Entrez (Chapter 15). Here, PubMed links to the PubMed
abstracts of the reference citations in the entry. Related Entries are to all other OMIM entries
referenced in the subject entry. Nucleotide, Protein, and LinkOut connections are as
documented in the previous section.

The OMIM Entry

Each OMIM entry has a unique number and is given a primary title and symbol. This is the
The NCBI Handbook

title that is displayed in the document retrieval list. Alternative designations are listed below
the primary title. Some entries contain information that is related but not synonymous to the
primary topic and is not addressed in another entry (e.g., splice variants, phenotypic variants,
etc.). This information is set off by the word “included” in the title. The first “included” title
is displayed in the document retrieval list. The cytogenetic map location when known is given
for each entry. When a disease shows genetic heterogeneity, more than one map location may
be given. The “light bulb” icon at the end of text paragraphs links to related articles in PubMed.
References within the text are linked to the complete citation at the end of the entry. There, the
PubMed ID is linked to the PubMed abstract.

Some entries contain an Allelic Variants section, which lists noteworthy mutations for the
gene. Allelic variants are given a 10 digit number: the 6-digit number of the parent locus,
followed by a decimal point and a unique 4-digit variant number. Criteria for inclusion include
the first mutation to be discovered, high population frequency, distinctive phenotype, historic
significance, unusual mechanism of mutation, unusual pathogenetic mechanism, and
The NCBI Handbook

distinctive inheritance (e.g., dominant with some mutations, recessive with other mutations in
the same gene). Most of the allelic variants represent disease-producing mutations. A few
polymorphisms are included, many of which show a statistically significant association with
specific common disorders.

FTP
The OMIM data are available for bulk transfer, but it should be noted that there are restrictions
on use.

The OMIMTM database, including the collective data contained therein, is the property of The
Johns Hopkins University, which holds the copyright thereto. The OMIM database is made
available to the general public subject to certain restrictions. You may use the OMIM database
and data obtained from this site for your personal use, for educational or scholarly use, or for
research purposes only. The OMIM database may not be copied, distributed, transmitted,
duplicated, reduced, or altered in any way for commercial purposes or for the purpose of
The NCBI Handbook

redistribution without a license from The Johns Hopkins University. Requests for information
regarding a license for commercial use or redistribution of the OMIM database may be sent
via email to [email protected].

Legal Statement
OMIM is funded by a contract from the National Library of Medicine and the National Human
Genome Research Institute and by licensing fees paid to the Johns Hopkins University by

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

commercial entities for adaptations of the database. The terms of these licenses are being
managed by the Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

References
1. McKusick VA, et al. Mendelian Inheritance in Man. 12th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press; 1998.
2. Hamosh A. Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), a knowledgebase of human genes and
genetic disorders. Nucleic Acids Res 2002;30:52–55. [PubMed: 11752252]99152
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The NCBI BookShelf: Searchable Biomedical Books

[Chapter 8]

Bart Trawick
Jeff Beck
Jo McEntyre

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

The BookShelf is a collection of biomedical books that can be searched directly in Entrez or found
via keyword links in PubMed abstracts. Books have been added to the BookShelf in collaboration
with authors and publishers, and the complete content (including all figures and tables) is free to use
for anyone with an Internet connection.
The online books are displayed one section at a time, with navigation provided to other parts of the
current chapter or to other chapters within the book. Many of the books on the BookShelf can be
browsed without any restriction at all; others have less flexibility for navigating the complete content.
The publisher (or the owner of the content) defines the rules for access.
The books are linked to PubMed through research papers citations within the text. In the future, more
links may be established between the BookShelf and other resources at NCBI, such as gene and
protein sequences, genomes, and macromolecular structures.

Content Acquisition
The NCBI Handbook

Basis for Inclusion

The BookShelf provides a venue through which publishers and authors can make the full text
of biomedical books available to the scientific community. As the BookShelf grows, we
welcome proposals from authors, editors, or publishers of any "in-scope" texts, from
undergraduate textbooks to more specialized publications, including collections of review
articles or workshop proceedings. The scope of the BookShelf is broadly biomedical, including
clinical works and those concerning basic biological and chemical sciences.

Information for Authors, Editors, and Publishers

All books made available on the BookShelf have been provided in electronic format to NCBI.
The publisher must provide the content in full. Because the complete content is required for
display and indexing purposes, the authors, editors, and publisher of a book should all be a part
of the decision to participate in the BookShelf. Interested parties can contact us at
[email protected] for more information or to make a proposal for the inclusion of a
The NCBI Handbook

book. There is a simple contract that specifies the terms of use of the content. A sample contract
can also be obtained by request at the above email address.

The complete contents of each book will be converted into XML according to the NCBI Book
Document Type Definition (DTD), a public domain DTD developed at NCBI for this project
(see below). Books may be submitted to conform to this DTD, or NCBI will convert the source
data to validate against the Book DTD. If a conversion needs to be done, the content must be
in a format robust enough to meet the needs of the BookShelf publishing system and DTD.

Any book that was printed from SGML or XML should allow for a straightforward conversion.
We have had success converting books from Word, XYWrite, PDF, and Quark Express
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

formats, and we anticipate that we would also be able to convert from other desktop publishing
packages. HTML and PDF formats are less desirable because the data formats are less detailed.

Figures should be supplied in TIFF format, although GIF and JPEG formats may be accepted.
The submitted text files are converted into XML according to the NCBI Book DTD; graphic
files are converted into GIF and JPEG formats. Three hard copies of the book are also required,
along with the electronic files.

The XML files are stored in a database. When a reader requests a book, chapter, or section,
the XML is retrieved from the database and converted into HTML on the fly using Extensible
Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

How to Use the Books

There are three ways to access the content in BookShelf:
The NCBI Handbook

1. Through hyperlinked terms in PubMed abstracts

2. By a direct search using search terms or phrases (in the same way as the bibliographic
database of PubMed is searched)

3. Through the Table of Contents of the book (note: some publishers restrict browsing through
the entire book by disabling hyperlinks in the Table of Contents)

Links from PubMed

The BookShelf can be accessed from all PubMed abstract pages. When viewing a full PubMed
abstract, select the Books hyperlink in the upper right-hand corner. This generates a version
of the abstract in which certain phrases and terms appear as hypertext links (see Figure 1). The
linked term may be one or more words in length. If a word or a phrase is linked, it means that
the exact phrase also appears in at least one book. Selecting a linked phrase retrieves a list of
books that contain that term.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A PubMed abstract showing terms linked to books

This view was generated by selecting Links found in the top right corner of the abstract and
then selecting Books from the drop-down menu that appears.

A statistical weighting system based on the frequency of each phrase in a book section, relative
to the rest of the book, is used to identify “good” phrases. A phrase that appears repeatedly in
only a few sections and rarely in other parts of the book indicates a definitive phrase for those
few sections; therefore, it ranks highly. Furthermore, the appearance of a phrase in the title,
for example, has a greater value in the weighting system than one appearing solely in the text.

Each PubMed abstract can thus be linked to the appropriate book pages. This method allows
two very dissimilar types of text—the dense, focused PubMed abstracts and the more
descriptive book text—to find common ground.
The NCBI Handbook

Direct Search of Books

Book contents may be searched directly from the BookShelf homepage by using the search
boxes located in the Table of Contents and navigation bars of books or by selecting Books
from the pull-down menu in any Entrez database search bar (see Chapter 15). Search terms
may be combined using Boolean operators that conform to PubMed syntax (see Chapter 2).

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

The BookShelf also allows search fields to be specified. A complete list of BookShelf database
fields can be found in Table 1.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Field limits for use in the BookShelf
Fielda Use

[Author] Search for the authors of books or chapters.

[Book] Typically used with a Boolean expression to limit a search to a particular book.

[PmId] Locate a journal article citation in a book by its PubMed ID.

[Rid] Locate a particular book element (such as a figure or table) by its reference ID.

[Secondary Text] Search for secondary text, e.g., units (mg/l, etc.)

[Title] Search for words used in any title (book, chapter, section, subsection, figure, etc.).

[Type] Locate a division of a book such as a section, chapter, or figure group.

a
Filters are applied immediately following a search term, with no separating spaces, e.g., watson[author] AND cmed[book].
The NCBI Handbook

Interpreting Results from a Search or PubMed Link

Results are shown as a list of books in which the term is found, along with the number of
sections, figures, and tables that contain the term (Figure 2). The book that contains the most
hits appears at the top of the list. Choosing the hyperlinked number of items that is associated
with a particular book will then display a document summary list of the individual sections,
figures, and tables found. (When a term or phrase is found fewer than 20 times within the
BookShelf, the document summary page is shown directly, without first displaying the results
clustered by book.)
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A results page from a BookShelf search

If more than 20 sections, tables, and/or figures are found that contain the query term, a summary
page, such as the one above, is displayed.

The document summary list is sorted with the most relevant documents shown at the top of
the page. The sorting makes use of scores allocated to phrases as a measure of how relevant
they are to a given section (a part of the statistical weighting system also used for linking
PubMed abstracts to the books). For each book section found, the title, along with some context
The NCBI Handbook

regarding the hierarchy of the section location (e.g., the chapter and book), is given. An icon
is used to distinguish figure legends and tables from text sections (Figure 3). Selecting a
hyperlinked section title displays the part of the book that contains the search term. From this
point, the user may be able to navigate further throughout the book content, according to the
policy of the publisher (see Navigating Book Content).

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A document summary list of book sections

The most relevant sections to the query appear at the top of the list. Note the icons that designate
figure and table hits. The list may also be displayed in a brief format that lists only the section
names that contain the term by choosing Brief from the drop-down menu to the immediate
right of the Display button.

Navigating Book Content

Each HTML page of content seen in a Web browser represents one section of one chapter of
The NCBI Handbook

a book, i.e., all of the content (including subsections and so on) within the first-level heading
of a chapter. The amount of content this represents varies according to the structure of the
original book. Some books have very long sections, some short, some a mixture; although on
the whole, most chapters are divided into 3-10 sections.

The top of every page contains links to both short and detailed Tables of Contents and a
description of the current location within the book (Figure 4). The hierarchal elements that

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

describe the current location are hyperlinked and may be used to travel up the organizational
levels of a book. Additionally, a navigation sidebar shows the current section among its peers
and lists the figures and tables found within the current section (Figure 4). Reference citations
in the text are linked where possible to PubMed abstracts by the Citation Matcher. References
internal to the book, e.g., to other chapters or sections, figures, tables, and boxes, are also
hyperlinked. Further navigation from the current page to other parts of the book depends on
the access policy of the publisher.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Navigation elements that appear on every book HTML page

Hyperlinks to various sections within a chapter appear within a navagation bar to the left of
each page. Hyperlinks may be disabled within some books at the request of the publisher. A
Search box is located below the navigation bar. At the top of each page is a hyperlinked,
hierarchical tree that illustrates a page's relative position within a book.

Technology
Text Conversion and XML
All book content submitted to the BookShelf is converted to XML according to the public
NCBI Book DTD.

Any files submitted in SGML or XML are converted to the Book DTD using XSLT. Books
The NCBI Handbook

submitted in desktop publishing or word processing formats are converted by a contractor using
proprietary technologies. Once the book XML is valid against the DTD, the book is ready to
be loaded into the database.

The XML for a book is generally a set of files. Each chapter and appendix is an independent
file, as is the frontmatter. The book is pulled together by the book.xml file, which defines the
structure of the book. For example, a book with two chapters and a bibliography at the end of
the book would be structured as follows:

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

<!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "ncbi-book.dtd" [

<!-- graphics -->
<!ENTITY % Graphics SYSTEM "graphics.xml">
%Graphics;
<!ENTITY frontmatter SYSTEM "fm.xml">
<!ENTITY chapter1 SYSTEM "ch1.xml">
<!ENTITY chapter2 SYSTEM "ch2.xml">
<!--back-->
<!ENTITY biblist SYSTEM "biblist.xml">
]>
<book>
&frontmatter;
<body>
The NCBI Handbook

&chapter1;
&chapter2;
</body>
<back>
&biblist;
</back>
</book>

The book.xml file is composed of two parts. The first part defines all of the components that
are required to build the book. These definitions occur within the <!DOCTYPE [ ] > tag. The
second part builds the structure of the book. The root element is <book>. <book> contains
whatever is in &frontmatter;, <body>, and <back>.

The book.xml example above refers to five external files: fm.xml, which contains all of the
frontmatter of the book; ch1.xml, which contains chapter 1; ch2.xml, which contains chapter
2; biblist.xml, which contains the bibliography for the book; and graphics.xml, which defines
The NCBI Handbook

the images. If any of these files is not valid according to the DTD or if the files are not found
where they are defined in their <!ENTITY > declaration, then the book will not be valid.

Images
All of the images, including figures, icons, and book-specific character graphics (see Special
Characters below), are called out in the text as entities. The entities are defined in the
graphics.xml file.

<!ENTITY ch2fu6 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2fu6.gif" NDATA GIF>

<!ENTITY ch2fu7 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2fu7.jpg" NDATA JPG>

<!ENTITY ch2fu8 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2fu8.gif" NDATA GIF>

<!ENTITY ch2fu9 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2fu9.gif" NDATA GIF>

The NCBI Handbook

<!ENTITY ch2fu10 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2fu10.gif" NDATA GIF>

<!ENTITY ch2e1 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2e1.gif" NDATA GIF>

<!ENTITY ch2e2 SYSTEM "data/mga/pictures/ch2/ch2e2.gif" NDATA GIF>

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

Graphic files are converted into GIF and JPEG formats and optimized for display on the Web.
The images are not loaded into the database; they are retrieved from a file server when called
by the HTML page.

Math and Formulae

Math expressions and chemical formulae and structures are handled as images.

Special Characters
The BookShelf uses the same character sets that PubMed Central uses (see Chapter 9). These
include a number of standard ISO character sets (8879 and 9573), along with a set of characters
that has been defined to accommodate characters not in the standard set. The ISO Standard
Character sets referenced are listed in Box 1 of Chapter 9. Special characters are converted to
the BookShelf/PubMed Central (PMC) character set during conversion into XML. Characters
created for one book (book-specific characters) are called out in the XML as images. To provide
The NCBI Handbook

for the most flexibility in displaying characters across platforms, BookShelf uses UTF-8
encoding whenever possible. Because not all browsers support the same subset of UTF-8
characters and some characters cannot be represented in UTF-8, the BookShelf displays
characters as a combination of GIFs and UTF-8 characters, depending on the Browser/OS
combination and the character to be displayed.

The BookShelf Data Flow

The XML files for each book are stored in a Sybase database. To show the best representation
to each reader, the reader's browser and operating system are noted and passed to the rendering
software. When a reader requests a book, chapter, or section, the XML and the character images
or UTF-8 characters appropriate to the reader's system are retrieved from the database.

The XML is converted to HTML using XSLT stylesheets. The look of the HTML pages is
controlled further using CSS, which allow manipulation of colors, fonts, and typefaces (Figure
5).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Processing and data flow of books

The Table of Contents for a book is created from actual elements within the book content,
rather than from the Table of Contents given in the book frontmatter of the hard copy. This
ensures that the Table of Contents represents the content accurately as it is organized on
BookShelf.

NCBI Book DTD

The NCBI Handbook

History
In the first version of the NCBI BookShelf project, Quark files were converted directly to
HTML for display online. The result was effective, illustrating the value of having a textbook
online and linked to PubMed; however, it was labor intensive, limiting, and not scaleable.

To simplify the delivery of books online and to allow for the expansion of linking within the
Entrez system, NCBI decided to convert all content into a centralized XML format. The

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

normalized XML content is easier to render, allows added value such as the addition of links
to other NCBI databases, and simplifies the addition of new volumes.

PMC created a new DTD for the BookShelf project, which was based on the ISO-12803 DTD.
As more books were converted to the NCBI Book DTD, changes had to be made to
accommodate the data.

The NCBI Book DTD is a public DTD available on request from [email protected].

Frequently Asked Questions

1
How do I access the books at NCBI?

The online books can be accessed by direct searching in Entrez or through PubMed abstracts.
After performing a general PubMed search, click on the author name of one of the search results
The NCBI Handbook

to view the abstract. A hypertext link called Links is displayed to the right of the abstract title.
This link contains a drop-down menu consisting of various choices, depending upon the
specific abstract. Choosing Books from this drop-down menu will highlight keywords in the
abstract that, when selected, initiate a search of all BookShelf content for that particular term.

2
Which books are available at NCBI?

The book list is updated on a regular basis and can be viewed on the BookShelf homepage:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Books.

3
Can I search the books at NCBI?

Yes, the books can be searched either as a complete collection or as a single, selected book
The NCBI Handbook

(restricted using search options found under Limits).

4
Can I browse the whole book?

The system has been designed so that the user is delivered to the most relevant book sections
for a particular term or concept. Although navigation is possible in the immediate vicinity of
the page to which you are delivered, it may not be possible to browse the complete book on
BookShelf. The range of navigation for each book is determined on a case-by-case basis, in
agreement with the publisher.

5
I am the publisher/author/editor of a book. How can I participate?

Please email [email protected] to discuss potential projects.

The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

PubMed Central (PMC): An Archive for Literature from Life

Sciences Journals
[Chapter 9]

Jeff Beck
Ed Sequeira

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

PubMed Central (PMC) is the National Library of Medicine's digital archive of full-text journal
literature. Journals deposit material in PMC on a voluntary basis. Articles in PMC may be retrieved
either by browsing a table of contents for a specific journal or by searching the database. Certain
journals allow the full text of their articles to be viewed directly in PMC. These are always free,
although there may be a time lag of a few weeks to a year or more between publication of a journal
issue and when it is available in PMC. Other journals require that PMC direct users to the journal's
own Web site to see the full text of an article. In this case, the material will always be available free
to any user no more than 1 year after publication but will usually be available only to the journal's
subscribers for the first 6 months to 1 year.
To increase the functionality of the database, a variety of links are added to the articles in PMC:
between an article correction and the original article; from an article to other articles in PMC that
cite it; from a citation in the references section to the corresponding abstract in PubMed and to its
full text in PMC; and from an article to related records in other Entrez databases such as Reference
Sequences, OMIM, and Books.
The NCBI Handbook

A PubMed Central (PMC) Site Guide

The PMC homepage has a list of all journals available in PMC and the earliest available issue
for each journal (Figure 1). From here, a table of contents for the latest available issue of a
journal or a list of all issues of the journal available through PMC can be viewed.
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The PMC journal list

Every article citation in a table of contents includes one or more links (Figure 2). Articles for
which the full text is available directly in PMC generally have links to an Abstract view, a Full
Text view, and a PDF (printable view). Where applicable, they also have links to Corrections
and to supplementary data that may be available for the article. In cases where the full text is
available only at the journal publisher's site, there is only one link, to a PubLink page (described
below).
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

PMC table of contents

In addition to the header information for the article itself, the upper part of a Full Text or
PubLink page contains a variety of links, including links to other forms of the article, to related
information in PubMed and other Entrez databases, and to corrections or “cited-in” lists where
these apply (Figure 3). The sidebar in the body of a Full Text page (Figure 4) has links to tables
The NCBI Handbook

and thumbnail images of any figures in the article, which when selected will display the full
figure. Figures and tables may also be opened directly from the point in the text where they
are referenced. Citations in the References section of an article frequently include a link to the
corresponding PubMed abstract and sometimes also have a link to the full text of the referenced
article in PMC (Figure 5).
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
Page 4

The Databases
Header of Abstract and Full Text pages
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook
Page 5

The Databases
Body of Full Text page
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

References

An Abstract page is identical to a Full Text page that has been cut off at the end of the abstract.

A PMC PubLink page (Figure 6) is similar to an Abstract page, except that it does not have
links to alternate forms (Full Text or PDF) of the article in PMC. Instead, it contains a link to
The NCBI Handbook

the full text at the publisher's site and information about when it will be freely available.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

PubLink page

When an article has been cited by other articles in PMC, a “cited-in” link displays just under
the article header information on both the Abstract and Full Text pages. Selecting this cited-
in link gives you a list of the articles that have referenced the subject article (Figure 7).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Cited-in list

PMC article citations may also be retrieved by doing a search in PMC or through a PubMed
search. (In PubMed, use the subsets limit if you want to find only articles that are available in
PMC.)

Participation in PMC
Participation by publishers in PMC is voluntary, although participating journals must meet
certain editorial standards. A participating journal is expected to include all of its peer-reviewed
primary research articles in PMC. Journals are encouraged to also deposit other content such
The NCBI Handbook

as review articles, essays, and editorials. Review journals, and similar publications that have
no primary research articles, are also invited to include their contents in PMC. However,
primary research papers without peer review are not accepted.

Journals that deposit material in PMC may make the full text viewable directly in PMC or may
require that PMC link to the journal site for viewing the complete article. In the latter case, the
full text must be freely available at the journal site no more than 1 year after publication. In
the case of full text that is viewable directly in PMC, which by definition is free, the journal

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

may delay the release of its material for more than 1 year after publication, although all current
journals have delays of 1 year or less.

In either case, the journal must provide SGML or XML for the full text, along with any related
high-resolution image files. All data must meet PMC standards for syntactically correct and
complete data.

The rationale behind the insistence on free access is that continued use of the material, which
is encouraged by open access, serves as the best test of the durability and utility of the archive
as technology changes over time. PMC does not claim copyright on any material deposited in
the archive. Copyright remains with the journal publisher or with individual authors, whichever
is applicable.

Refer to Information for Publishers to learn more about participating in PMC.

The NCBI Handbook

Links to Other NCBI Resources

From Abstract and Full Text pages in PMC are links to related articles in PubMed and to related
records in other Entrez databases, such as Nucleotides or Books. These are identical to the links
between databases that you can find in any Entrez record.

PMC Architecture
PubMed Central is an XML-based publishing system for full-text journal articles. All journal
content in the archive was either supplied in, or has been converted to, a Document Type
Definition (DTD) written at NCBI for the publication and storage of full-text articles.

The content is displayed dynamically on the PMC site by journal, volume, and issue (if
applicable). XML, Web graphics, PDFs, and supplemental data are stored in a Sybase database.
When a reader requests an article, the XML is retrieved from the database, and it is converted
to HTML using XSLT stylesheets. The look of the HTML pages is controlled further by using
The NCBI Handbook

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which allow manipulation of colors, fonts, and typefaces.

Data Flow: 1. SGML/XML Processing

We receive journal content either directly from publishers or from publishers' vendors. This
content includes:
• SGML or XML of the articles to be deposited
• High-resolution images
• Supplemental data associated with the articles
• PDF versions of the articles
All of the text is converted to a central DTD, the PMC DTD, and the images are converted to
Web format (GIF and JPEG). These files, along with any supplemental data or PDFs, are loaded
into the database for linking, indexing, and retrieval (Figure 8). The source text in SGML or
XML format is parsed against the source DTD. If the source files do not conform to the DTD,
The NCBI Handbook

they are returned to the publisher or vendor for correction.

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data flow

Once all of the files in an issue or batch have been validated, they are converted to PMC XML
(referred to as a PMC XML file or PXML) using XSLT (Figure 9). Because XSLT is an XML
conversion tool, SGML source files must first be converted to XML. This is done using SX,
which is available from James Clark. The transformation will close any empty elements and
insert ending tags for any element that is not closed.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Text conversion flow

For each publisher that submits SGML, an XML version of the DTD is created. This is used
to parse the output of SX before the XML conversion is started. The XML version of the
publisher's DTD is not used to validate the source data (because this has already been done
using the original DTD).

XSLT requires that the input file be valid XML. If a DTD is not available for validation, the
The NCBI Handbook

parser will check the syntax; it will also replace all of the character entities with the appropriate
UTF-8 representation. This can cause a problem because the relationship between the
characters in the input file and their UTF-8 representations may not be one to one. This means
that characters translated to UTF-8 might not translate back to the original character entity
accurately.

After the XSLT conversion, the original character entities are converted to character entities
that are valid under the PMC DTD. Character translation tables for each source DTD regulate
this conversion.

The resulting XML is then validated against the PMC DTD.

Several other items are created along with the PXML file. These are:

1. An entity file (articlename.ent). This file lists all of the character entities (from the PMC
DTD-defined entity sets) that are in the article. One entity file is created for each article. This
The NCBI Handbook

information is loaded into the database and is used to prepare the final HTML file for display.
A sample is below:

agr
deg
Dgr

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

ldquo
lsqb
lt
pmc811
mdash

2. A PubMedID file (articlename.pmid). This file includes a set of reference citations in the
format

Journal_Title|year|volume|first_page|AuthorName|Refno|pubmedid

When the article is converted, this information is collected from each journal citation in the
bibliography and sent in a query to PubMed (using the Citation Matcher utility). If a value is
returned, it is written in the last field. If no value is returned, an error message is written in this
The NCBI Handbook

field. This information is saved so that if the article ever needs to be reconverted, the PubMed
IDs will not need to be looked up again. A sample is below:

Nucleic Acids Res|1992|20|2673|Murray JM|13:2:493:16|1319571

J Biol Chem|1999|274|35297|Naumann M|13:2:493:17|10585392
EMBO J|2000|19|3475|Osaka F|13:2:493:18|10880460
Nature|2000|405|662|Osterlund MT|13:2:493:19|0
FASEB J|1998|12|469|Seeger M|13:2:493:20|9535219

3. A source node file (articlename.src). When an article is passed through the XSLT conversion,
a list is made of each node, or named piece of information, that is included in the file. As the
conversion is running, each node that is being processed is recorded. When the conversion is
complete, the processed node list is compared with the list of nodes in the source file, and any
piece of information that was not processed is reported in a conversion log. A sample is below:
The NCBI Handbook

/ART
/ART/@AID
/ART/@DATE
/ART/@ISS
/ART/BM/FN/P/EXREF
/ART/BM/FN/P/EXREF/@ACCESS
/ART/BM/FN/P/EXREF/@TYPE
/ART/FM
/ART/FM/ABS
/ART/FM/ABS/P
/ART/FM/ABS/P/EMPH
/ART/FM/ACC
The NCBI Handbook

/ART/FM/ATL
/ART/FM/ATL/EMPH
/ART/FM/AUG
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/CPYRT/CPYRTNME/COLLAB
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/CPYRT/DATE
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/CPYRT/DATE/YEAR
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/DOI
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/EXTENT

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/FPAGE
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/ISSN
/ART/FM/PUBFRONT/LPAGE
/ART/FM/RE
/ART/FM/RV

Image Processing
To accommodate the archiving requirements of the PubMed Central project, it is important
that figures be submitted in the greatest resolution possible, in TIFF or EPS format. Figures in
these formats will be available for data migration when formats change in the future, and
PubMed Central will be able to keep all of the figures current.

For display on the PMC site, two copies of each figure are made: a GIF thumbnail (100 pixels
wide) and a JPEG file that will be displayed with the figure caption when the figure is requested.
The NCBI Handbook

Supplemental Data Processing

Supplemental data include any supporting information that accompanies the article but is not
part of the article. They may be text files, Word document files, spreadsheet files, executables,
video, and others.

Sometimes a journal has a Web site where all of this supplemental information is stored. In
this case, PubMed Central establishes links from the article to the supplemental information
on the publisher's site.

In other cases, the supplemental data files are submitted with the article to be loaded into the
PMC database. Either way, the information concerning this supplemental data is collected in
a Supplemental Data file, which includes the location of the supplemental file(s), the type of
information that is available, and how the link should be built from the article. PMC does not
validate any of the supplemental data files that are supplied.
The NCBI Handbook

Mathematics
Mathematical symbols and notations can be difficult to display in HTML because of built-up
expressions and unusual characters. For the most part, expressions that are simple enough to
display using HTML are not handled as math unless they are tagged as math specifically.
Publishers that supply content to PMC handle math expressions in one of two ways: supplied
images or encoding in SGML.

1. Math Images
Any expression that cannot be tagged by the source DTD is supplied as an image. In this case,
PMC will pass the image callout through to the PXML file and display the supplied image in
the HTML file.

2. Math in SGML
Several of the Source DTDs used by publishers to submit data to PMC are robust enough to
The NCBI Handbook

allow coding of almost any mathematical expression in SGML. Most of these were derived
from the Elsevier DTD; therefore, many of the elements are similar.

During article conversion, any items that are recognized as math are translated into Teχ. This
would include any expression tagged specifically as a "formula" or "display formula," as well
as any free-standing expression that cannot be represented in HTML. These expressions

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

include radicals, fractions, and anything with an overbar (other than accented characters). For
example:
"x + y = 2z" would not be recognized as a math expression, but "<formula>x + y =
2z</formula>" would be.
"1/2" would not be recognized as a math expression, but <fraction><numerator>1</
numerator><denominator>2 </denominator></fraction> would be.
"<radical>2x</radical> would be recognized as a math expression, as would
"<overbar>47X</overbar>."
The SGML:

<FD ID="E2">I<SUP><UP>o</UP>
</SUP><INF><UP>f</UP></INF>&cjs1134;I<INF><UP>f</UP></INF>=&phgr;
The NCBI Handbook

<SUP><UP>o</UP></SUP><INF><UP>f</UP></INF>&cjs1134;&phgr;<INF>
<UP>f</UP></INF>=1&plus;K<INF><UP>sv</UP></INF>&lsqb;<UP>Q
</UP>&rsqb;</FD>

Converts to:

<fd id="E2"><math mathtype="tex"

id="M2">\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
\usepackage{wasysym}
\usepackage[substack]{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsbsy}
\usepackage[mathscr]{eucal}
The NCBI Handbook

\usepackage{mathrsfs}
\DeclareFontFamily{T1}{linotext}{}
\DeclareFontShape{T1}{linotext}{m}{n} { <-> linotext }{}
\DeclareSymbolFont{linotext}{T1}{linotext}{m}{n}
\DeclareSymbolFontAlphabet{\mathLINOTEXT}{linotext}
\begin{document}
\[
I^{o}_{f}/I_{f}={\phi}^{o}_{f}/{\phi}_{f}=1+K_{sv}[Q]
\]
\end{document}
</math></fd>

When the articles are loaded into the database, the equation markup is written into an Equation
table. This table will also include the equation image, which will be created from the Teχ
markup.
The NCBI Handbook

The image for the equation shown above in SGML and PXML (with Teχ) is:

Data Flow: 2. Loading the Database

Because all of the content in PubMed Central is in the same format—PMC DTD—loading
articles into the database is relatively straightforward. Once an article is loaded into the

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

production (public) database, it will retain its ArticleId (article ID number) in perpetuity. On
loading, each article is validated against the PMC DTD. Also, any external files that are
referenced by the XML are checked. If any file, such as a figure, is missing, the loading will
be aborted.

The database loading software and daily maintenance programs perform several other tests to
ensure the accuracy and vitality of the archive:
1 Journal identity. The Journal title being loaded is verified against the ISSN number
in the PXML to verify that the journal identity is correct.
2 Duplicate articles. An article may not be loaded more than once. Any changes to the
article must be submitted as a replacement article, which will use the same ArticleId.
3 Publication date/delay. Rules for delay of publication embargo can be set up in the
database to ensure that an issue will not be released to the public before a certain
amount of time has passed since the publisher made the issue available.
The NCBI Handbook

4 PubMed IDs. PubMedIDs for the article being loaded or any bibliographic citation in
the article that are not defined in the PXML are looked up upon loading.
5 Link updates. Links between related articles and from articles to external sources are
updated daily.
The database has been designed to allow multiple versions of articles. In addition to article
information, the database also stores information on content suppliers and publishers and
journal-specific information.

Special Characters
PubMed Central uses a number of standard ISO character sets (8879 and 9573), along with a
set of characters that has been defined to accommodate characters not in the standard set. The
ISO Standard Character sets referenced are listed in Box 1.

Box 1
The NCBI Handbook

ISO Standard Character sets used by PMC

<!ENTITY % ISOlat1 PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN">

<!ENTITY % ISOlat2 PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 2//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOnum PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Numeric and Special
Graphic//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOpub PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Publishing//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOgrk1 PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Greek Letters//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOgrk2 PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Monotoniko Greek//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOtech PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES General Technical//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOdia PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Diacritical Marks//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOAMSO PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:
Ordinary //EN">
The NCBI Handbook

<!ENTITY % ISOAMSR PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:

Relations //EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOamsr PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:
Relations//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOamsn PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:
Negated Relations//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOAMSA PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:
Arrow Relations //EN">

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

<!ENTITY % ISOAMSB PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:

Binary Operators //EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOamsc PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Math Symbols:
Delimiters//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOmopf PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Math Alphabets: Open
Face//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOmscr PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Math Alphabets:
Script//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOmfrk PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Math Alphabets:
Fraktur//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISObox PUBLIC "ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Box and Line Drawing//
EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOcyr1 PUBLIC "ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Russian Cyrillic//EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOcyr2 PUBLIC "ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Non-Russian Cyrillic//
The NCBI Handbook

EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOGRK3 PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Greek Symbols //EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOGRK4 PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES Alternative Greek
Symbols //EN">
<!ENTITY % ISOTECH PUBLIC "ISO 9573-13:1991//ENTITIES General Technical //
EN">

Each publisher DTD defines a set of characters that may be used in their articles. Generally,
these publisher DTDs use the same standard ISO character sets listed in Box 1. Any character
that cannot be represented by the standard ISO sets is defined in a publisher-specific character
set. These publisher-specified characters are converted into characters in the PMC entity list
during conversion (see SGML/XML Processing). The PMC entity list is publicly available.

The supplied data also include groups of entities that are to be combined in the final document.
Sometimes these are grouped in a tag such as:
The NCBI Handbook

<A><AC>&alpha;</AC><AC>&acute;</AC></A>

and sometimes they are just positioned next to each other in the text. These combined entities
must be mapped either to an ISO character or to a character in the PMC character set.

For the most flexibility in displaying characters across platforms, PMC uses UTF-8 encoding
whenever possible. Because not all browsers support the same subset of UTF-8 characters and
some characters cannot be represented in UTF-8, PMC displays characters as a combination
of GIFs and UTF-8 characters, depending on the Browser/OS combination and the character
to be displayed.

PMC DTD
History
The NCBI Handbook

In the first version of the PMC project, the SGML and XML were loaded into a database in its
native format. The HTML rendering software was then required to convert content from
different sources into normalized HTML on the fly when a reader requested an article.

This was slow and cumbersome on the rendering side and was not scaleable. At that time, PMC
was receiving content for about five journals in two DTDs, the keton.dtd from HighWire Press
and the article.dtd from BioMed Central. The set-up for a new journal was difficult, and it soon
became obvious that this solution would not scale easily.

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

To satisfy the archiving requirement for the PMC project and to simplify the delivery of articles
online, PubMed Central decided to convert all content into a centralized format. The
normalized content is easier to render, allows enhanced value such as links to other NCBI
databases to be added, and simplifies content archiving.

PMC created a new DTD, which was strongly influenced by the BioMedCentral article.dtd
and the keton.dtd. The original emphasis was on simplicity. As more and more articles from
more and more journals were converted to the PMC DTD, changes had to be made to
accommodate the data. The PMC DTD is publicly available.

Review and Revision of the PMC DTD

Because the PMC DTD grew rapidly, it was feared that the original "simplicity" of its design
would lead to confusing data structures. With more and more publishers inquiring about
submitting content directly in the PMC DTD, PubMed Central decided that an independent
review was necessary. Mulberry Technologies, Inc., an electronic publishing consultancy
The NCBI Handbook

specializing in SGML- and XML-based systems, reviewed the DTD and created a modified
version.

At approximately the same time, under the auspices of a Mellon Grant to explore ejournal
archiving, Harvard University Library contracted with Inera, Inc. to review a variety of DTDs
from selected publishers, PMC included. The study focused on two key questions:
1 Can a common DTD be designed and developed into which publishers' proprietary
SGML files can be transformed to meet the requirements of an archiving institution?
2 If such a structure can be developed, what are the issues that will be encountered when
transforming publishers' SGML files into the archive structure for deposit into the
archive?
The requirement of the archival article DTD was defined as the ability to represent the
intellectual content of journal articles. This study is available and suggestions from the study
were used in the NLM Archiving DTD Suite.
The NCBI Handbook

The NLM Archiving DTD will not be backwards-compatible with the pmc-1.dtd. It should be
publicly available by the end of 2002, along with complete documentation for publishers and
authors. A draft version is available (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pmcdoc/dtd/nlm_lib/
0.1/documentation/HTML/index.html), along with a draft version of the documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please refer to the PMC site for answers to frequently asked questions.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The SKY/CGH Database for Spectral Karyotyping and

Comparative Genomic Hybridization Data
[Chapter 10]

Turid Knutsen
National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Vasuki Gobu
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
The NCBI Handbook

Rodger Knaus
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Thomas Ried
National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Karl Sirotkin
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

Summary
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A metaphase spread after SKY hybridization

The NCBI Handbook

The RGB image demonstrates cytogenetic abnormalities in a cell from a secondary leukemia cell
line. Arrows indicate some of the many chromosomal translocations in this cell line.
Spectral Karyotyping (SKY) (1–7) and Comparative Genomic Hybidization (CGH) (8–11) are
complementary fluorescent molecular cytogenetic techniques that have revolutionized the detection
of chromosomal abnormalities. SKY permits the simultaneous visualization of all human or mouse
chromosomes in a different color, facilitating the detection of chromosomal translocations and
rearrangements (Figure 1). CGH uses the hybridization of differentially labeled tumor and reference
DNA to generate a map of DNA copy number changes in tumor genomes.
The goal of the SKY/CGH database is to allow investigators to submit and analyze both clinical and
research (e.g., cell lines) SKY and CGH data. The database is growing and currently has a total of
about 700 datasets, some of which are being held private until published. Several hundred labs around
the world use this technique, with many more looking at the data they generate. Submitters can enter
data from their own cases in either of two formats, public or private; the public data is generally that
which has already been published, whereas the private data can be viewed only by the submitters,
who can transfer it to the public format at their discretion. The results are stored under the name of
The NCBI Handbook

the submitter and are listed according to case number. The homepage includes a basic description of
SKY and CGH techniques and provides links to a more detailed explanation and relevant literature.

Database Content
Detailed information on how to submit data either to the SKY or CGH sectors of the database
can be found through links on the homepage. What follows is a brief outline.

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Spectral Karyotyping
The submitter enters the written karyotype, the number of normal and abnormal copies for each
chromosome, and the number of cells for each clone. Each abnormal chromosome segment is
then described by typing in the beginning and ending bands, starting from the top of the
chromosome (Figure 2); the computer then builds a colored ideogram of this chromosome and
eventually a full karyotype (SKYGRAM) with each normal and abnormal chromosome
displayed in its unique SKY classification color, with band overlay (Figure 3). Each breakpoint
submitted is automatically linked by a button marked FISH to the human Map Viewer (Figure
4; Chapter 20), which provides a list of genes at that site and available FISH clones for that
breakpoint.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

SKY data entry form for two different abnormal chromosomes, built segment by segment, for the
SKYGRAM image
Chromosome images on the left are the result of entering the start (top) and stop (bottom) band
for each segment.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A SKYGRAM from the SKY/CGH database demonstrating cytogenetic abnormalities in a

transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder cell line
The written karyotype and a one-line case summary are also provided.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Map Viewer image depicting the information on genes, clones, FISH clones, map sequences, and
STSs for a specific chromosomal breakpoint (5q13) identified in a SKYGRAM image

Comparative Genomic Hybridization

The CGH database displays gains, losses, and amplification of chromosomes and chromosome
segments. The data are entered either by hand or automatically from various CGH software
programs. In the manual format, the submitter enters the band information for each affected
chromosome, describing the start band and stop band for each gain or loss, and the computer
program displays the final karyotype with vertical bars to the left or right of each chromosome,
indicating loss or gain, respectively (Figure 5).
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A CGH profile from the SKY/CGH database demonstrating copy number gains and losses in a
tumor cell line established from a metastatic lymph node in von Hippel-Lindau renal cell carcinoma

Case Information
Clinical data submitted include case identification, World Health Organization (WHO) disease
classification code, diagnosis, organ, tumor type, and disease stage. To obtain the correct
classification code, a link is provided to the NCI's Metathesaurus TM site, which includes,
among its many systems, the codes developed by the WHO and NCI, and published as the
The NCBI Handbook

International Classification of Diseases, 3rd edition (ICD-O-3).

Reference Information
The references for the published cases are entered into the Case Information page and are linked
to their abstracts in PubMed.

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Tools for Data Entry

SKYIN
A colored karyotype with band overlay is presented to the submitter, who then builds each
aberrant chromosome by cutting and pasting (by clicking with the mouse at appropriate
breakpoints) (Figure 6). Each aberrant chromosome is then inserted into the full karyotype,
which is displayed as a SKYGRAM.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

SKYIN format
Clicking on a chromosome brings up that chromosome with band overlay. Using the cursor,
the operator cuts and pastes together each abnormal chromosome. The abnormal chromosome
shown is a combination of chromosomes 10, 16, and 22. Inset, an example of the clinical
information entered for a case.

Karyotype Parser
To speed up the entry of cytogenetic data into the database, NCBI has built a computer program
to automatically read short-form karyotypes, extract the information therein, and insert it into
the SKY database (Figure 7). Karyotypes are written according to specific rules described in
An International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature (1995) (12). Using these rules,
The NCBI Handbook

the parser (1) breaks the karyotype into small syntactic components, (2) assembles information
from these components into an information structure in computer memory, (3) transforms this
information into the formats required for an application, and (4) uses the information in the
application, i.e., inserts it into the database. To accomplish this, the syntactic parser first extracts
the information out of each piece of the input; the pieces are then put directly into a tree structure
that represents karyotype semantics. For insertion into the SKY database, the karyotype
information is transformed into ASN.1 structures that reflect the design of the database.

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Karyotype Parser
The short-form written karyotype, entered in the karyotype field in (a), has been converted into
a modified long-form karyotype (b), which describes each abnormal chromosome from top to
bottom. Both short and long terms use standardized symbols and abbreviations specified by
ISCN.

NCI Metathesaurus
Data submitters must use the same terminology for diagnosis (morphology) and organ site
The NCBI Handbook

(topography) to permit comparison or combination of the data in the SKY/CGH database. From
the many different disease classification systems, the International Classification of Diseases
for Oncology, 3rd edition (ICD-O-3)(13) was selected as the database's standard. It contains a
morphology tree and a topography tree. In most cases, the submitter must select one term from
each tree to fully classify a case. To find and select the correct ICD-O-3 morphology and
topography terms, the user is referred to NCI Metathesaurus, a comprehensive biomedical
terminology database, produced by the NCI Center for Bioinformatics Enterprise Vocabulary

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

Service. This tool facilitates mapping concepts from one vocabulary to other standard
vocabularies.

Data Analysis: Query Tools

Quick Search Format
Quick Search can be found at the top of the SKY/CGH homepage and can be used for several
types of information in the database; these are defined in Searchable Topics in the Help section.
Topics include cytogenetic information (whole chromosome, chromosome arm, or
chromosome breakpoint), submitter name, case name, cell line by name, diagnosis, site of
disease, treatment, hereditary disorders, mouse strain, and genotype. One or more terms can
be entered, and there are options to search SKY alone, CGH alone, SKY AND CGH, or the
default, SKY OR CGH.

The query results page displays information on all relevant cases, clones, and cells, along with
The NCBI Handbook

details of SKY and/or CGH studies and clinical information for each case.

Advanced Search Format

All of the public clinical and cytogenetic information can be searched. This format is currently
under development.

The CGH Case Comparison Tool

This tool compares and summarizes the CGH profiles from multiple cases on one ideogram.
There are numerous criteria that can be used for comparison, such as diagnosis, tumor site,
mouse strain, and gain or loss of specific chromosomes, chromosome arms, or chromosome
bands.

Data Integration
Integration with the NCBI Map Viewer
The NCBI Handbook

All chromosomal bands, including breakpoints involved in chromosomal abnormalities, are

linked to the Map Viewer database (Figure 4 ; see also Chapter 20) The Map Viewer provides
graphical displays of features on NCBI's assembly of human genomic sequence data as well
as cytogenetic, genetic, physical, and radiation hybrid maps. Map features that can be seen
along the sequence include NCBI contigs, the BAC tiling path, and the location of genes, STSs,
FISH mapped clones, ESTs, GenomeScan models, and variation (SNPs; see Chapter 5).

SKY/CGH Database Links

Links are provided to related Web sites including: chromosome databases (e.g., the Mitelman
database); other NCI (e.g., CGAP and CCAP) and NCBI [e.g., the Map Viewer (Chapter 20),
Entrez Gene (Chapter 19) resources; and PubMed (Chapter 2)] sites; The Jackson Laboratory;
and several other CGH sites.

Contributors
The NCBI Handbook

NCBI: Karl Sirotkin, Vasuki Gobu, Rodger Knaus, Joel Plotkin, Carolyn Shenmen, and Jim
Ostell

NCI: Turid Knutsen, Hesed Padilla-Nash, Meena Augustus, Evelin Schröck, Ilan R. Kirsch,
Susan Greenhut, James Kriebel, and Thomas Ried

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

References
1. Schröck E, du Manoir S, Veldman T, Schoell B, Wienberg J, Ferguson-Smith MA, Ning Y, Ledbetter
DH, Bar-Am I, Soenksen D, Garini Y, Ried T. Multicolor spectral karyotyping of human
chromosomes. Science 1996;273:494–497. [PubMed: 8662537]
2. Liyanage M, Coleman A, du Manoir S, Veldman T, McCormack S, Dickson RB, Barlow C, Wynshaw-
Boris A, Janz S, Wienberg J, Ferguson-Smith MA, Schröck E, Ried T. Multicolour spectral
karyotyping of mouse chromosomes. Nat Genet 1996;14:312–315. [PubMed: 8896561]
3. Ried T, Liyanage M, du Manoir S, Heselmeyer K, Auer G, Macville M, Schröck E. Tumor cytogenetics
revisited: comparative genomic hybridization and spectral karyotyping. J Mol Med 1997;75:801–814.
[PubMed: 9428610]
4. Weaver ZA, McCormack SJ, Liyanage M, du Manoir S, Coleman A, Schröck E, Dickson RB, Ried T.
A recurring pattern of chromosomal aberrations in mammary gland tumors of MMTV–c-myc
transgenic mice. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 1999;25:251–260. [PubMed: 10379871]
5. Knutsen T, Ried T. SKY: a comprehensive diagnostic and research tool. A review of the first 300
The NCBI Handbook

published cases. J Assoc Genet Technol 2000;26:3–15.

6. Padilla-Nash HM, Heselmeyer-Haddad K, Wangsa D, Zhang H, Ghadimi BM, Macville M, Augustus
M, Schröck E, Hilgenfeld E, Ried T. Jumping translocations are common in solid tumor cell lines and
result in recurrent fusions of whole chromosome arms. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2001;30:349–
363. [PubMed: 11241788]
7. Phillips JL, Ghadimi BM, Wangsa D, Padilla-Nash H, Worrell R, Hewitt S, Walther M, Linehan WM,
Klausner RD, Ried T. Molecular cytogenetic characterization of early and late renal cell carcinomas
in Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2001;31:1–9. [PubMed:
11284029]
8. Kallioniemi A, Kallioniemi OP, Sudar D, Rutovitz D, Gray JW, Waldman F, Pinkel D. Comparative
genomic hybridization for molecular cytogenetic analysis of solid tumors. Science 1992;258:818–821.
[PubMed: 1359641]
9. Heselmeyer K, Schröck E, du Manoir S, Blegen H, Shah K, Steinbeck R, Auer G, Ried T. Gain of
chromosome 3q defines the transition from severe dysplasia to invasive carcinoma of the uterine
cervix. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1996;93:479–484. [PubMed: 8552665]40262
10. Ried T, Liyanage M, du Manoir S, Heselmeyer K, Auer G, Macville M, Schröck E. Tumor
The NCBI Handbook

cytogenetics revisited: comparative genomic hybridization and spectral karyotyping. J Mol Med
1997;75:801–814. [PubMed: 9428610]
11. Forozan F, Karhu R, Kononen J, Kallioniemi A, Kallioniemi OP. Genome screening by comparative
genomic hybridization. Trends Genet 1997;13:405–409. [PubMed: 9351342]
12. ISCN: An International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature. In: Mitelman F, editor. Basel:
S. Karger; 1995.
13. Fritz A, Percy C, Jack Andrew, Shanmugaratnam K, Sobin L, Parkin DM, Whelan S, editors.
International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, 3rd ed. Geneva: World Health Organization;
2000.
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

The Major Histocompatibility Complex Database, dbMHC

[Chapter 11]

Adrienne Kitts
Michael Feolo
Wolfgang Helmberg

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

One of the most intensely studied regions of the human genome is the Major Histocompatibility
Complex (MHC), a group of genes that occupies approximately 4–6 megabases on the short arm of
chromosome 6. The MHC genes, known in humans as Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) genes, are
highly polymorphic and encode molecules involved in the immune response. The MHC database,
dbMHC, was designed to provide a neutral platform where the HLA community can submit, edit,
view, and exchange MHC data. It currently consists of an interactive Alignment Viewer for HLA
and related genes, an MHC microsatellite database (dbMHCms), a sequence interpretation site for
Sequencing Based Typing (SBT), and a Primer/Probe database. dbMHC staff are in the process of
creating a new database that will house a wide variety of HLA data including:
• Detailed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mapping data of the HLA region
• KIR gene analysis data
• HLA diversity/anthropology data
• Multigene haplotype data
The NCBI Handbook

• HLA/disease association data

• Peptide binding prediction data
The MHC database is fully integrated with other NCBI resources, as well as with the International
Histocompatibility Working Group (IHWG) Web site, and provides links to the IMmunoGeneTics
HLA (IMGT/HLA) database.
This chapter provides a detailed description of current dbMHC resources and reviews dbMHC
content and data computation protocols.

Introduction
The most important known function of HLA genes is the presentation of processed peptides
(antigens) to T cells, although there are many genes in the HLA region yet to be characterized,
and work continues to locate and analyze new genes in and around the MHC (1–4). The vast
amount of work required to elucidate the MHC led to a series of International
The NCBI Handbook

Histocompatibility Workshop/Conferences (IHWCs). These conferences were the genesis for

the IHWG, a group of researchers actively involved in projects that lead to shared data resources
for the HLA community (5–16). dbMHC is a permanent public archive that was conceived by
the IHWG and is implemented and hosted by NCBI. This database is intended to be expandable;
if you have ideas for additional resources, please send an email to [email protected].

The staff of the MHC database are currently accepting online submissions for the Primer/Probe/
Mix component of dbMHC. Submissions can include typing data from any of the following:
Sequence Specific Oligonucleotides (SSOs), Sequence Specific Primers (SSPs), SSO and/or
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

SSP mixes, HLA typing kits, and Sequencing Based Typing (SBT). dbMHC allows submitters
to edit their submissions online at any time.

dbMHC Resources
Box 1 contains information on setting up accounts for using dbMHC.

Box 1
dbMHC guests and dbMHC accounts
A user can access dbMHC resources as a guest, that is, without having or being a member
of an account. However, dbMHC guests will be unable to submit data to dbMHC or edit
existing data. Data from a guest session will not be saved from session to session or even
from frame to frame. Guests do have the option to download data from a particular session.
To create a dbMHC account, select the “Create an Account” from the left sidebar of the
The NCBI Handbook

dbMHC homepage. Here, you will provide institutional information and specify an account
administrator. Only the account administrator is allowed to do the following:
• Enter new users.
• View or edit existing users.
• Change user permissions. This includes permission to modify allele reactivities and
to enter new primers/probes/mixes or typing kits and to modify existing ones.
• Edit institutional information.

Alignment Viewer
The Alignment Viewer is designed to display pre-compiled allele sequence alignments in an
aligned or FASTA format for selected loci. It offers an interactive display of the alignment,
where users can select alleles, highlight SNPs within the alignment, and change between a
The NCBI Handbook

Codon display and a Decade display (blocks of 10 nucleotides). Users can also switch the type
of display, from one where the sequence is completely written out to one where only the
differences between selected sequences and a pre-selected reference sequence are seen. All
sequences displayed in the Alignment Viewer can be downloaded and formatted as alignment,
FASTA, or XML. If the Alignment option is selected, it is up to the user to define how the
alignment should be organized. The Alignment option allows the user to download the entire
alignment, or just a section of it, and also allows the user to specify how the sequence will be
displayed (e.g., in groups of 10 nucleotides or amino acids).

dbMHC can be used as a tool to help design primers/probes, to evaluate the reactivity patterns
of potential probes, and to evaluate the polymorphism content of a particular gene.

MHC Microsatellite Database (dbMHCms)

dbMHCms contains many of the known microsatellites across the HLA region and is designed
to search for descriptive information, when available, about these highly heterozygotic short
The NCBI Handbook

tandem repeats (STRs). The MHC microsatellite information that users will be able to extract
using dbMHCms includes:
• Physical location
• Number and length of known alleles
• Allelic motifs
• Informativity

The Databases
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

• Heterozygosity
• Primer sequences
Users will find the markers shown on the dbMHCms Web page useful because they provide
evidence for genetic linkage and/or association of a genomic region with disease susceptibility.
This resource was developed by NCBI in collaboration with A. Foissac, M. Salhi, and Anne
Cambon-Thomsen, who provided the original data on MHC microsatellites in a series of
updates (17–19). dbMHCms will be expanded to include the STR markers used in the 13th
IHWG workshop.

Sequencing Based Typing (SBT) Interface

The SBT interface is designed to analyze sequence information provided by users and provides
an interpretation of the sequence that includes potential allele assignments and division of the
sequence into exons and introns. Sequence can be submitted to the SBT interface by copying
and pasting or by uploading from a file, either as haploid strands or heterozygote sequence.
The NCBI Handbook

The current format restricts input to text or FASTA-formatted sequence.

Submitted sequences are aligned to reference locus sequences located in the dbMHC allele
database based on a user-defined degree of nucleotide mismatch. After a brief analysis, the
SBT interface will display exons, introns, and untranslated regions for each sequence. Allele
assignments are listed according to matching order. Mismatched nucleotide positions are listed
separately (in the lower frame of the SBT interface) after selecting Alignment. Note that the
SBT interface analyzes one or more sequences for a single locus. If sequences from multiple
loci that have identical group-specific amplifications are submitted, the SBT interface must be
used to analyze sequences from only one locus at a time.

Primer/Probe Database
This database is designed to provide a comprehensive and standardized characterization of
individual typing primers and probes, as well as primer and/or probe mixes, and encompasses
the following technologies:
The NCBI Handbook

1 Probe hybridization using Sequence Specific Oligonucleotides (SSOs).

2 DNA amplification using Sequence Specific Primers (SSPs).
3 Sequencing Based Typing (SBT) protocols. The Primer/Probe database can be used
as a reference resource for probe design and is intended to provide necessary tools
for the exchange of DNA typing data based on the above technologies. This database
is composed of a Primer/ Probe Interface and a Typing Kit Interface. Each interface
has a series of interactive frames that allow the user to access different database
functions.

Primer/Probe Interface
The Primer/Probe Interface provides information on individual reagents used for the typing of
MHC or MHC-related loci. Users can access this information through the multiple functional
frames within the interface. The words “primers” and “probes” represent SSOs, SSPs, SSP
mixes, SSO mixes, and their combinations, which include nested PCR or SSO hybridization
The NCBI Handbook

on group-specific amplifications. Nested PCR and group-specific amplification are both based
on a primary amplification with an SSP mix.

Selection of Primers/Probes
The process of selecting a primer/probe begins by entering information in the upper frame of
the Primer/Probe Interface page. Users enter search options for primers, probes, and mixes,
which are grouped by type (SSO, SSP, SSO mix, and SSP mix), locus, and source (submitting

The Databases
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

institution). Primers/probes can also be selected by entering either the global or local name
into the search field. Once this information is entered, the lower frame fills in with the Primer/
Probe Listing. Primers/probes that are then selected by the user within the Primer/Probe Listing
will be displayed in the large scroll box (in the upper frame) and can be downloaded in XML
format.

Primer/Probe Listing
This function is found in the lower frame of the Primer/Probe Interface page. Results of a
Primer/Probe selection are displayed here and will include a unique global ID, local name,
source, locus, and type for each primer/probe result. The Global Name (global ID) of each
result provides a link to the Primer/Probe View or Mix View functions, and the check box
associated with each primer/probe/mix can be used to generate a list of items in the Primer/
Probe Interface for subsequent download in XML format.

Box 2 contains information on global IDs.

The NCBI Handbook

Box 2
Global IDs
Upon submission, dbMHC creates a unique global ID number for each primer/probe/mix/
kit submitted. This global ID consists of three letters for the submitting institution and seven
digits.
dbMHC uses the global ID number to store the entire history of a reagent. The global ID
number will never change, but every time a user edits the sequence of a submitted primer/
probe/mix/kit, that edit is given an incremental version number. Thus, all previous versions
of a particular primer/probe/mix/kit are consequently accessible, and submitted primers/
probes/mixes/kits can never be deleted.
A “local name” is the identifier given by submitters to their primers and probes.
The NCBI Handbook

Primer/Probe View
The Primer/Probe View is located in the upper frame of the Primer/Probe Interface and appears
as a result of selecting a global ID. This view will display the entire set of data of the SSP and/
or SSO primers and/or probes that the user had selected in the Primer/Probe Interface. The data
displayed include:
• Local name
• Locus as specified by the submitter
• Global ID
• Date of last change (“last modified”)
• Probe orientation as specified by the submitter
• Corresponding allele sequence (Allele Seq:)
The NCBI Handbook

• Reagent type
• Optional filter, i.e., pre-amplification
• Version number
• Probe sequence (Probe Seq:)
• The annealing position of the 3' end of the probe as specified by the submitter
• Probe stringency

The Databases
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Primer/Probe View offers links that will enable a user to edit primer/probe information, change
primer/probe stringency, and allow users to list alleles detected by a probe with a sequence
alignment. If a list of alleles detected by a primer/probe without sequence alignment is wanted,
Primer/Probe View can do this as well. Select Listed, and the results will be displayed in the
Primer/Probe Allele Reactivities Listing.

Primer/Probe Edit
The primer/probe edit function allows users to enter new primers/probes into dbMHC or allows
users to edit existing primer/probe data. All but the following three fields can be edited (these
fields are set by dbMHC):
• Global ID
• Version number
• Date of last change
The NCBI Handbook

Within the primer/probe edit frame, there is an alternative input field for primer/probe sequence
called Allele Sequence. If primer or probe orientation is set to “reverse”, the Allele Sequence
field will reverse complement the allele sequence as displayed in the alignment to generate the
appropriate primer/probe sequence.

Before submitting primer/probe data, a user should define the matching stringency of the primer
or probe in the Annealing Stringency field. Once the user has selected the matching stringency,
the probe can be submitted. Submission of a primer/probe triggers dbMHC to begin an allele
reactivity calculation that is based on the primer/probe sequence and the selected matching
stringency. The result of this calculation is a list of alleles that might be detected by the
submitted primer/probe. The user will find this detectable allele list in the Reactive Allele
Listing (lower frame).

Alignment, on the Primer/Probe View, opens a sequence alignment in the lower frame, which
is the reactive allele alignment.
The NCBI Handbook

Reactive Allele Listing

The Reactive Allele Listing is located in the lower frame of the Primer/Probe Interface. It lists
the alleles that might be detected by a selected primer/probe or mix (Boxes 3 and 4).

Box 3
Primer/probe reactivity
Reactivity scores characterize the reactivity between a primer/probe and an allele for
primers and probes and are listed below:
• Positive: probe anneals with allele.
• Weak: probe anneals sometimes with allele.
• Unclear: annealing cannot be predicted, no empirical information, allele has not
been sequenced at the annealing position.
The NCBI Handbook

• Negative: probe does not anneal.

dbMHC calculates primer/probe reactivity based on sequence similarity only and
does not take into account laboratory experimental conditions such as magnesium
concentration, temperature, etc.

The Databases
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

Box 4
Submitter's reactivity scores vs. dbMHC reactivity scores
A submitter's reactivity score can differ from the dbMHC's calculated reactivity score. If
there is disparity between the submitter's score and the dbMHC score, users should regard
the submitter's score as reliable. In cases of unexplainable disagreement, however, users
should contact the submitting institution for further information.

Reactive Allele Alignment

Selecting Aligned from the Primer/Probe View results in a display of the reactive allele
alignment in the lower frame of the Primer/Probe Interface. It displays the alleles that might
be detected by a certain primer/probe or mix in alignment with that primer/probe sequence. By
default, the first 20 alleles detected by the primer/probe or mix will be displayed. The frame
The NCBI Handbook

for the reactive allele alignment also allows a submitter to set or edit the Allele Reactivity Score
of a primer/probe in this frame. If a submitter chooses to not set a reactivity score, then dbMHC
sets the submitter reactivity score to “not edited”. dbMHC will also calculate a system reactivity
score for the primer/probe based on the primer/probe sequence and matching stringency.
Colored option boxes indicate dbMHC's reactivity score for the primer/probe, whereas dots
within the option boxes indicate the submitter's reactivity score. If the submitter's score (see
Box 5) is set and differs from dbMHC's score, the dbMHC score box changes to a warning
color.

Box 5
Setting allele reactivity scores
A submitter can set individual allele reactivity scores either one-by-one or in a batch. The
allele reactivity score for all alleles or for individual alleles that are unedited can be set the
same as dbMHC's proposed allele reactivity score.
The NCBI Handbook

If the user chooses to set the reactivity score as a batch, be aware that alleles within the
batch that are not currently displayed will be scored as well. If the user makes a mistake in
the scoring, Reset will reset the reactivity scores to the values present at the beginning of
the session.
Submit stores the edited scores in the database. Once submitted, allele reactivity scores
cannot be automatically reset to their prior value.
Submitting allele reactivity scores will trigger a new dbMHC allele reactivity calculation.
If the submitted primer/probe sequence is shorter than 10 nucleotides, dbMHC will use the
score information of the alleles to extend the probe sequence.

The alignment position of the 3' end of the probe is recorded for each allele. Both the sense
and the reverse alignment positions are displayed if the alignment represents an SSP mix.

Only users with permission from an account administrator will be able to edit or add additional
The NCBI Handbook

alleles to a Reactive Allele Listing for a particular primer/probe or mix. To edit the allele
reactivity list, mark the “edit reactivity list” check box in the reactive allele alignment frame.

Mix View
The Mix View function is located in the upper frame of the Primer/Probe Interface and can be
accessed via the link on the global ID of the Primer/Probe Listing page.

The Databases
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

It displays an entire set of mix data for selected SSO and SSP mixes:
• Local name
• Mix type
• Locus as specified by the submitter
• Optional filter, i.e., pre-amplification
• Global ID
• Version number
• Date of last change
• List of probes as mix elements
• Mix stringency
The Mix View function contains links to the Mix Element function, where users can change
The NCBI Handbook

or add elements of a mix. Users will also find links to the Reactive Allele Listing, where they
may list alleles detected by a selected mix or selected individual elements of a mix that do not
have a sequence alignment. Finally, users will find links to the reactive allele alignment
function, where they can view alleles with sequence alignments that are detected by a selected
mix or selected individual elements of a mix.

Mix Edit
The Mix Edit function is located in the upper frame of the Primer/Probe Interface and allows
users to enter new mixes or to edit existing mix data. Users can edit all but the following three
fields (these fields are set by dbMHC):
• Global ID
• Version number
• Date of last change
Annealing stringency defines the cumulative matching stringency of the elements of the mix.
The NCBI Handbook

For SSP mixes, both the sense and the reverse primer must react with the allele with at least
the defined stringency.

Mix Element
The Mix Element function is located in the lower frame of the Primer/Probe Interface and
allows users to add elements to a mix or edit existing elements of a mix. To use the Mix Element
function, the user must first specify the mix to be altered in the Mix Edit function and define
a source for the primers/probes that the user wants listed. The mix element function displays
only SSO probes for SSO mixes and displays SSP probes from SSP mixes in a sense column
and a reverse orientation column. For mixes that contain probes from different sources, users
must enter the mix elements separately.

Typing Kit Interface

The Typing Kit Interface is the gateway to information on individual typing kits used for typing
The NCBI Handbook

MHC or MHC-related loci. Users can access this information through multiple functional
frames within the interface. Typing kits contained within the Typing Kit Interface consist of
SSOs, SSO mixes, or SSP mixes. Elements of typing kits may interact with unamplified DNA,
pre-amplified DNA, or several distinct groups of pre-amplified DNA within one locus (e.g.,
two different amplifications of a certain exon using a distinct variation). The elements of each
typing kit will react in characteristic patterns with individual alleles. These patterns can be used
to determine allelic variants or a group of allelic variants within a locus (see Box 6).

The Databases
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Box 6
Versions of a typing kit
All typing kits are identified by a global ID that is created by dbMHC, which will store the
entire history of changes made to a typing kit. An incremental version number is given to
every editing session of a typing kit; thus, even if some or all elements of a kit were deleted
or altered by a user during an editing session, previous versions of the kit and kit elements
will still be available.

Selection of the Typing Kit

Use the Typing Kit Interface to enter search parameters for typing kits. Typing kits are grouped
by:
•
The NCBI Handbook

Type: SSO, SSP

• Locus
• Source: the submitting institution
Typing kits can also be selected by typing either the global or local name into the search field.

Search results, based on user-selected parameters, will be displayed in the Typing Kit Listing,
which appears in the lower frame of the Typing Kit Interface. Typing kits selected from the
Typing Kit Listing will be displayed in the large scroll box (of the upper frame). They either
can be used for combined pattern interpretation of multiple kits or downloaded in XML format.

Typing Kit Listing

The Typing Kit Listing is displayed in the lower frame of the Typing Kit Interface. On the
basis of the criteria selected, kits are listed with their unique global ID, local name, source,
locus, and type. The global ID for each kit provides a link to the Typing Kit View (upper frame
of the Typing Kit Interface). The check boxes associated with each typing kit are used to
The NCBI Handbook

generate a list of items in the Kit Select view for subsequent interpretation of a pattern or for
download in XML format.

Typing Kit View

The Typing Kit View (upper frame of the Typing Kit Interface) lists the entire set of primer/
probe data for selected SSO and SSP kits. Typing kit probe data include:
• Local name
• Kit type
• Locus (with or without group-specific pre-amplifications)
• Global ID
• Version number
• Batch
The NCBI Handbook

If List Elements from the Typing Kit View is selected, the Typing Kit Elements list provides
links to the kit components. Users will also find links to the Edit Kit Locus Groups and Elements
page, where they can edit kit information, or they can use Save kit as... to access the New
Typing Kit function, where they can create a new kit based on a currently displayed one (see
Box 7).

The Databases
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

Box 7
Creating a virtual kit
If a primer/probe within an existing typing kit malfunctions and a user created a modification
of the primer/probe, that modified primer/probe is considered by dbMHC to be an entirely
new probe.
The kit that contains this modified primer/probe is considered by dbMHC as an entirely
new kit. Therefore, when entering a sequence modification of primer/probe within a kit, a
submitter must create a new kit by using Save kit as located within New Typing Kit.
Save kit as will create a copy of the existing kit. The user can then rename the copy of the
existing kit, virtually creating a new kit. The user can then go to the kit element frame, Edit
Kit Locus Groups and Elements, to remove the old primer/probe from the new kit and
replace it with the modified primer/probe.
The NCBI Handbook

Typing Kit Elements

Typing Kit Elements is displayed in the lower frame of the Typing Kit Interface and is used
to display all of the elements (components) within a particular typing kit. This function will
group the kit elements according to the kit locus groups and will display them as an ordered
list. The global ID of each kit element serves as a link to either the Mix View or the Primer/
Probe View of this element.

Edit Kit Locus: Groups and Elements

The Typing Kit Interface Locus: function (upper frame) can be considered a switchboard for
assembling a typing kit for dbMHC, although kit name, batch, and type must be edited using
the New Typing Kit function, accessed from New Kit on the Typing Kit Interface. The kit's
global ID number, version number, and the date of last change are set by dbMHC. Users
wanting to edit elements of a particular kit must select a particular locus first and then select
The NCBI Handbook

Add locus group or Edit locus group, which will open the Edit Locus Group Elements page
in the lower frame of the browser (see Box 8).

Box 8
Typing kit locus "groups"
HLA typing kits are usually used to detect alleles in one or more loci. Within a typing kit,
a particular locus and an optional pre-amplification define what is termed a "group". Thus,
one typing kit can contain several groups, with each group either consisting of the same
locus and a different pre-amplification (or no pre-amplification) or consisting of different
loci (with or without pre-amplification).

Edit Locus Group Elements

The kit group function is located in the lower frame of the Typing Kit Interface and allows a
The NCBI Handbook

user to add single elements to, or remove single elements from, a kit group. The kit group frame
displays the elements for a particular locus selected by the user in the kit locus function. If the
typing kit of interest is an SSO kit, only SSO or SSO mixes will be displayed. If the typing kit
is an SSP kit, only SSP mixes will be displayed. Users can then add a primer/probe to the
displayed group elements by clicking on a particular primer/probe in the left column and can
remove a primer/probe from the group by selecting that element and clicking Remove.

The Databases
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

New Typing Kit

Access to the kit edit function, New Kit, is found in the upper frame of the Typing Kit Interface
and allows a user to enter or modify the name, batch, and type of typing kit. Users may change
the kit type so long as the kit does not yet contain any element or group.

Typing Kit Interpretation

Access to the typing kit interpretation function, Interpret, is found on the Typing Kit Interface.
It provides an online typing pattern interpretation tool. Typing kit reactivity patterns can be
analyzed one at a time. Several typing kits that are used to type one sample can be analyzed in
combination. An order number represents each element of a typing kit. This number provides
a link to the probe reactivity alignment view of each element. The display also indicates
whether, and for which elements, an allele-specific amplification has been used. Reactivity
patterns can be entered either as a string or via the graphical display. Both the graphical display
and the text field will update each other. The string entry accepts “1”, “+” for positive reactivity,
The NCBI Handbook

“0”,“-” for negative reactivity, “n” for not tested, “w” for weak reactivity, and “?” for
undetermined. The graphic entry symbols are green for positive reactivity, orange for weak
reactivity, yellow for undetermined, white for negative reactivity, and gray for “not tested”.
Users can preset the main reactivity by selecting one reactivity option and clicking on Set
All. If the option cycle has been selected, repeated clicking on one reactivity field of a kit will
cycle through all possible reactivities.

The reactivity string or pattern entered will be interpreted as a heterozygote allele combination.
Multiple kits can be combined. Users can set the degree of tolerance, which limits the number
of false-positive or false-negative reactivities per locus. Each locus is analyzed separately.
Allele assignments for each locus are listed according to the number of false-positive/false-
negative reactivities.

Typing Kit Pattern

Selecting Pattern from the Typing Kit Interface results in a display (in the lower frame) of a
The NCBI Handbook

cross-tab view of allele reactivities of an individual typing kit. Alleles are listed in rows, and
kit elements are listed in columns. Each element of a typing kit is represented by the respective
order number. This number provides a link to the probe reactivity alignment view of each
element. The display also indicates whether and for which elements an allele-specific
amplification has been used.

A “+” with a green background signals a detection of an allele by a kit element, a “w” with an
orange background signals a weak detection, a “?” with a yellow background signals a lack of
information, and an “r” with a red background signals a rejected interaction, although originally
suggested by the prediction algorithm. If a kit is designed to detect only a subset of alleles, the
display will be limited to this subset (see Box 9).

Box 9
Some dbMHC/browser limitations
• Because of operating system limitations, the Alignment Viewer can only display
The NCBI Handbook

up to 300 nucleotides in one line if the browser is Internet Explorer, whereas

Netscape is not restricted by this limitation.
• Several essential parts of dbMHC are based on Javascript interaction and dynamic
text generation within a page. Users must be aware that many browsers are unable
to properly interpret and display Javascript-generated text.

The Databases
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

• Netscape version 4.76 does not check for browser content size changes; therefore,
users must manually resize to trigger the correct size recognition. Users may resize
contents by using a "post" command, which will lead to a new download of the
initial request instead of simply resizing the window.
• Netscape 4.7 may sometimes cause fatal errors and does not allow users to copy
and paste sequences from the alignment to the probe sequence field in the probe
edit function.
• Internet Explorer version 5.5 and Netscape version 6.2 will correctly interface with
dbMHC.

Database Content
The data submitted to dbMHC are stored in a Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) relational database.
Table 1 is a data dictionary that defines dbMHC's database tables or record sets. For each
The NCBI Handbook

dbMHC table, the data dictionary provides the table name, a column name, the data type in a
particular table, and a summary comment.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Data dictionary
Table name Column name Data type Column comment

allele allele_nr int Unique identifier allele instance.

allele_id int Identifier for each allele.

allele_name varchar(30) Full allele name defined by IHWG.

allele_short varchar(30) Common use allele name.

allele_group int Group associated with allele.

compound_nr int Number identifying to which compound allele is a member.

locus_id int Number identifying to which locus allele is a member.

active tinyint Status labeling current active allele for this allele_id.
The NCBI Handbook

db_version_nr int IHWG database version to which this allele belongs.

user_id int Identifier or user who created/updated allele.

user_date datetime Date when record was created/updated.

block block_nr int Unique identifier for block instance.

block_id int Identifier for each block.

block_ord int Sequence order for each block.

block_type varchar(1) Defines block type.

locus_id int Identifier for locus for which block is a member.

ref_pos int Start reference position.

ref_length int Reference length.

working_pos int Start working position.

The NCBI Handbook

working_length int Working length.

block_name varchar(20) Common name.

active tinyint Status of row.

db_version_nr int IHWG database version to which this block belongs.

compound locus_id int Locus identifier.

compound_nr int Compound number.

job_trans trans_nr int Unique identifier for transaction.

app_name varchar(30) Application name that processes transaction.

app_arg varchar(30) Arguments to processing application.

create_date datetime Time created.

The NCBI Handbook

start_date datetime Time application started processing transaction.

end_date datetime Time application completed processing transaction.

status int Current status of transaction.

priority int Defines priority level.

message varchar(255) Any message that the processing application wants to record.

The Databases
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

Table name Column name Data type Column comment

kit kit_nr int Unique identifier for kit instance.

kit_id int Kit identifier.

kit_local_id int Submitter identifier.

version_nr int Version number of kit.

kit_name varchar(30) Submitter name.

kit_global_id varchar(30) NCBI-defined name.

kit_batch varchar(30) Submitter batch.

type int Type.

active tinyint Status labeling current active kit for this kit_id.

source_id int Source identifier.

The NCBI Handbook

user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

kit_locus kit_locus_nr int Unique identifier for kit locus instance.

kit_nr int

kit_id int Kit identifier.

locus_id int Locus identifier.

locus_order_nr int Order for loci to be used.

filter_id int Filter identifier.

tube_id int Tube identifier.

tube_order_nr int Order for tube to be used.

active tinyint Status labeling current active kit locus for this kit id.
The NCBI Handbook

user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

locus locus_id int Identifier for locus.

locus_NCBI_id varchar(30) NCBI locus identifier.

locus_name varchar(30) Common name.

display_id int Identifier of allele that should be used as the display reference.

ref_id int Identifier of reference allele.

locus_MIM_id int MIM locus identifier.

locus_pub_id int PubMed locus identifier.

display_order int Order number for display.

The NCBI Handbook

mhc_snp locus_id int Identifier for locus.

ref_pos int Reference position.

ref_offset int Reference offset.

subsnp_id int dbSNP's ss number.

snp_length int SNP's length.

The Databases
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

Table name Column name Data type Column comment

pos_conv compound_nr int Compound number.

working_pos int Working position.

ref_pos int Reference position.

ref_offset int Reference offset.

blast_pos int BLAST position.

probe_working probe_working_nr int Unique identifier for each row.

tube_nr int Unique identifier for tube instance.

probe_id int Tube (probe) identifier.

user_id int User identifier.

The NCBI Handbook

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

active tinyint Active status.

sequence varchar(255) Working sequence.

sequence seq_type int Sequence type.

seq_nr int Sequence number.

seq_ord int Sequence order.

sequence varchar(255) Character sequence.

session cur_session_nr int Current session number.

next_session_nr int Next avaliable session number.

user_id int User identifier.

create_date datetime Date created/updated.

The NCBI Handbook

source source_nr int Unique identifier source instance.

source_id int Source identifier.

source_code varchar(3) Source code for use in naming tubes and kits.

institution varchar(50) Source name.

admin_id int User identifier for administrator for source.

address varchar(50) Address.

city varchar(50) City.

state varchar(50) State.

postal_code varchar(20) Postal code.

country varchar(50) Country.

The NCBI Handbook

phone varchar(30) Phone number.

fax varchar(30) Fax number.

email varchar(50) Email address.

active tinyint Status labeling current active source for this source id.

user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

The Databases
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

Table name Column name Data type Column comment

options int Not used.

info varchar(255) Comments/general information.

tube tube_nr int Unique identifier for tube instance.

tube_id int Tube identifier.

tube_name varchar(30) Submitter name.

tube_global_id varchar(30) NCBI-defined name.

filter_id int Filter identifier.

source_id int Source identifier.

source_date datetime Not used.

The NCBI Handbook

type int Type.

sense tinyint Orientation.

locus_id int Locus identifier.

ref_pos int Submitted reference position.

ref_offset int Submitted reference offset.

stringency int Stringency set for annealing results.

active tinyint Status labeling current active tube for this tube_id.

user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

recalc_date datetime Not used.

db_version int IHWG database version to which this tube belongs.

info varchar(255) Comments/general information.

The NCBI Handbook

sequence varchar(255) Submitted sequence.

source_nr int

tube_allele tube_allele_nr int Unique identifier for tube allele instance.

tube_id int Tube identifier.

locus_id int Locus identifier.

allele_id int Allele identifier.

user_status int User status.

system_status int System status.

ref_pos int Reference position.

ref_offset int Reference offset.

The NCBI Handbook

block_nr int Not used.

score real Annealing score.

working_pos int Working position.

for_tube_id int Forward tube identifier.

for_working_pos int Forward working position.

rev_tube_id int Reverse tube identifier.

The Databases
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

Table name Column name Data type Column comment

rev_working_pos int Reverse working position.

sense tinyint Orientation.

seq_known int Sequence known (sequence fully defined).

active tinyint Status labeling current active tube allele for this tube_id
allele_id combination.

user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

tube_probe tube_probe_nr int Unique identifier for tube probe instance.

tube_nr int Unique identifier for tube instance.

probe_id int Tube identifier for sub tube in mix.

The NCBI Handbook

tube_id int Tube identifier.

active tinyint Status labeling current active tube probe for this tube_id
probe_id combination.

users user_id int User identifier.

user_date datetime Date created/updated.

user_nr int Unique identifier for user instance.

user_id int User identifier.

first_name varchar(30) First name.

last_name varchar(30) Last name.

login varchar(30) Login.

pwd varchar(30) Password.

The NCBI Handbook

source_id int Source identifier.

phone varchar(30) Phone number.

fax varchar(30) Fax number.

email varchar(50) Email address.

create_probe tinyint Permission to create probe.

create_kit tinyint Permission to create kit.

modify_probe tinyint Permission to modify probe.

modify_react tinyint Permission to modify reactivity.

modify_kit tinyint Permission to modify kit.

info varchar(255) Comments/general information.

active tinyint Status labeling current active user for this user_id.
The NCBI Handbook

createdby_id int Created by identifier (another user_id).

created_date datetime Date created/updated.

source_admin tinyint Is user_id an administrator for source?

The relationships between dbMHC database tables are depicted in Figure 1.

The Databases
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Physical model of the relationships among dbMHC database tables

Primer/Probe Database
dbMHC's primer/probe database or interface is not curated. As such, the accuracy of the
information presented in this database is dependent entirely upon the accuracy of the data
submitted to dbMHC.

We suggest that each primer or probe submitted should be characterized by its complete
The NCBI Handbook

sequence. In cases where submission of the complete sequence is impossible because the
sequence information is considered proprietary, dbMHC offers the option to submit partial
sequences. Submitted primer/probe specifications should comply with American Society of
Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI) (20) and European Federation of
Immunogenetics (EFI) (21) standards for primers/probes used in histocompatibility DNA
testing. If the submitted sequence contains fewer than 10 nucleotides, the submitter must also
provide the position of the 3' end of the probe within the alignment of a locus. This additional

The Databases
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

information is necessary because the likelihood of a primer/probe reactivity calculation

producing multiple erroneous alignment positions becomes too great if dbMHC calculates it
with fewer than 10 nucleotides.

Reagent Allele Reactivity Prediction

The allele reactivity prediction tool for primers and probes available through dbMHC presents
calculations based solely on sequence similarity and can therefore offer only suggestions for
the possible allele reactivities of individual primers and probes. Users should not consider this
tool to be 100% accurate. A reliable prediction of primer/probe allele reactivities requires
complete sequence information, as well as reaction data that include annealing temperature
and magnesium concentration. Because these data are not consistently available to dbMHC,
we are unable to offer more than a suggestion for primer/probe allele reactivity.

Computation of Primer/Probe–Allele Interaction Stringency

The NCBI Handbook

dbMHC uses sequence comparisons to create a sequence interaction match or stringency grade
that is compiled within a penalizing system. dbMHC's starting point for grading the interaction
between a primer/probe and an allele is 100%, with each difference in sequence between the
primer/probe and the allele causing a reduction in the remaining match grade by a certain
percentage. The primary factors dbMHC uses to compute stringency grading include:
• Nucleotide differences
• Nucleotide position and primer/probe type

Nucleotide Differences
dbMHC divides nucleotide interactions into five categories: perfect match, high match,
medium match, poor match, and no match. dbMHC defines these categories by using the purine
and pyrimidine interaction between the allele and the primer/probe, as well as the number of
hydrogen bonds affected during the virtual pairing of the allele with the primer/probe. See
Table 2.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2
Penalties for nucleotide mismatches
Probe DNA template

A T G C

A 0.56 0 0.42 0.69

T 0 0.54 0.42 0.65

G 0.67 0.63 0.56 0

C 0.9 0.94 0 1
Penalties calculated according to Peyret et al. (22).

Nucleotide Position and Primer/Probe Type

dbMHC uses a penalty system based on nucleotide position in its calculation of SSO/SSP
The NCBI Handbook

interactions with different alleles. The system dbMHC uses indicates the extent to which an
individual nucleotide position will affect the interaction stringency grade in a worst-case
scenario, where guanines are in opposing sequence positions or cytosines are in opposing
sequence positions. The maximum penalty given in the system is in the middle of an SSO and
at the 3' end of an SSP, as shown in Tables 3 and 4.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

Table 3
Position penalties for SSP nucleotide mismatches
5' 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 3'

0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.12 0.17 0.21 0.25 0.30 0.50 0.90

Primer T T T C T T C A C C T C C G T G T C

DNA T T T C T T C A C A T C C G T G T C
template
Match score calculation for SSPs.
An 18-mer primer anneals to a mismatched DNA. Primer and template are shown in the sense orientation. The substitution of C with A leads to
the mismatch C-T with a penalty of 0.94 (refer to Table 2).
This position has a 6% influence on the overall probe reactivity.
The overall probe score is 1 − (0.06 × 0.94) = 0.94.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

Table 4
Position penalties for SSO nucleotide mismatches
5' 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3'

0.22 0.22 0.34 0.34 0.70 0.70 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.80 0.70 0.70 0.34 0.34 0.22 0.22

Probe T T T C T T C A C A T C C G T G T C C C

DNA T T T C T C C A C A T C C G T G T C C C
template
Match score calculation for SSO probes.
A 20-mer SSO anneals to a mismatched DNA. Both probe and template are shown in the sense orientation. The substitution of T with C leads to
the probe-template mismatch T-G with a penalty of 0.42 (refer to Table 2).
This position has a 70% influence on the overall probe reactivity.
The overall probe score is 1 − (0.7 × 0.42) = 0.71.

If the initial interaction stringency grade for a particular primer/probe–allele interaction is

The NCBI Handbook

100% and a mismatch occurs in a position that carries a penalty of 100%, then dbMHC will
reduce the interaction stringency grade to 0%. If the mismatch occurs in a position that carries
a penalty of 95%, dbMHC will reduce the interaction stringency grade to 5%. A more detailed
example of how dbMHC computes primer/probe interaction stringency is available online.

dbMHC's reactive allele alignment algorithm searches for sequences with a match grade above
the stringency level set by the submitter of each probe. Currently, the search algorithm searches
within all loci that are part of dbMHC. Within each locus, the algorithm constructs compound
sequences that represent the combined polymorphic positions of alleles of the same length.
Alleles with insertions or deletions are handled separately. If a primer or probe matches with
a certain position within the compound, all contributing alleles are checked for that position,
whether or not they match.

The reactive allele alignment algorithm will check within a specified locus for sequences that
have a match grade in accordance with primer/probe specifications at a user-indicated position.
The algorithm then extends SSPs toward the 5' end of the probe, to a maximum of 10
The NCBI Handbook

nucleotides, and extends both sides of SSOs a maximum of 15 nucleotides, observing all
polymorphic positions in matching alleles. The resulting probe extension is then used by the
alignment algorithm to check for cross-reactivities within other loci.

If the submitted primer/probe sequence is shorter than 10 nucleotides and the user submits a
score that accepts certain alleles and rejects others, the reactive allele alignment algorithm will
use this information to refine the probe extension. If the probe submitter rejects all alleles
containing a unique sequence motif in the vicinity of the probe sequence, the algorithm will
generate the extended probe sequence such that it does not match the unique sequence motif.

Integration with Other Resources

NCBI Links
The dbMHC provides a set of internal links to other NCBI resource homepages through either
the black “quick link” bar located at the top of the dbMHC homepage or through the rotating
The NCBI Handbook

HLA molecule located at the top left-hand corner of the dbMHC homepage. These links will
take users to the following NCBI resources:
• PubMed
• Nucleotide
• Protein
• OMIM

The Databases
 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook

• BLAST
• Molecular Modeling database (MMdb)
The dbMHC Alignment Viewer provides locus-level linkage to NCBI's LocusLink and to
dbSNP at the individual SNP level.

Graphic View
The Graphic View page is a hyperlink-enabled representation of the MHC region on
chromosome 6. Locus-level links from the Graphic View page include:
• dbSNP (at the SNP haplotype level)
• Map View
• LocusLink
• OMIM
The NCBI Handbook

• Nucleotide
• Protein
• PubMed
• Structure
• Books
The header and link column sections of dbMHC's Graphic View are the same as those on the
main page. The content section of this page contains a selection box, called Choose Linked
Resource, and three horizontally arranged sections, called Chromosome 6, HLA Class I, and
HLA Class II. Genes listed in the HLA Class II section act as hyperlinks to the Web resource
selected in Choose Linked Resource.

External Links
Currently, dbMHC provides links (from the left sidebar) to the following external sites:
The NCBI Handbook

The MHC haplotype project.

The International Histocompatibility Working Group (IHWG). Links to individual IHWG

projects are listed in the text portion of the homepage.

The IMmunoGeneTics (IMGT)/HLA database. Links to the IMGT/HLA database are also
located on the allele selection page. Users can access the allele selection page by selecting
Alleles on the dbMHC Alignment Viewer. When Alleles is selected, each of the listed allele
names on the allele selection page links directly to the IMGT/HLA allele-specific information
page at the gene–allele level.

References
1. Bodmer J G, Marsh S G E, Albert E D, Bodmer W F, Bontrop R E, Dupont B, Erlich H A, Hansen J
A, Mach B, Mayr W R, Parham P, Petersdorf E W, Sasazuki T, Schreuder G M T, Strominger J L,
The NCBI Handbook

Svejgaard A, Terasaki P I. Nomenclature for factors of the HLA system, 1998. Tissue Antigens
1999;53(4):407–446. [PubMed: 10321590]
2. Robinson J, Bodmer J G, Malik A, Marsh S G E. Development of the International Immunogenetics
HLA Database. Hum Immunol 1998;59(Suppl):1–17.
3. Robinson J, Marsh S G E, Bodmer J G. Eur J Immunogenet 1999;26:75.
4. Robinson J, Bodmer J G, Marsh S G E. The American Society for Histocompatibility and
Immunogenetics 25th annual meeting. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. October 20-24, 1999. Hum
Immunol 1999;60:S1. [PubMed: 10549324]

The Databases
 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook

5. Histocompatibility testing: report of a conference and workshop. Washington, DC: National Academy
of Sciences - National Research Council, 1965.
6. Histocompatibility testing 1965. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1965.
7. Curtoni ES, Mattiuz PL, Tosi RM, eds. Histocompatibility testing 1967. Copenhagen: Munksgaard,
1967.
8. Terasaki PI, ed. Histocompatibility testing 1970. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1970.
9. Dausset J, Colombani J, eds. Histocompatibility testing 1972. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1973.
10. Kissmeyer-Nielsen F, ed. Histocompatibility testing 1975. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1975.
11. Bodmer WF, Batchelor JR, Bodmer JG, Festenstein H, Morris PJ, eds. Histocompatibility testing
1977. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1978.
12. Terasaki PI, ed. Histocompatibility testing 1980. Los Angeles: UCLA Tissue Typing Laboratory,
1980.
13. Albert ED, Baur MP, Mayr WR, eds. Histocompatibility testing 1984. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag,
1984.
The NCBI Handbook

14. Dupont B, ed. Immunobiology of HLA. Vol. I. Histocompatibility testing 1987, and Vol. II.
Immunogenetics and histocompatibility. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988.
15. Tsuji K, Aizawa M, Sasazuki T, eds. HLA 1991. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
16. Charron, D, ed. Genetic diversity of HLA. Functional and medical implications. Paris: EDK
Publishers, 1996.
17. Foissac A, Salhi M, Cambon-Thomsen A. Microsatellites in the HLA region: 1999 update. Tissue
Antigens 2000;55(6):477–509. [PubMed: 10902606]
18. Foissac A, Cambon-Thomsen A. Microsatellites in the HLA region: 1998 update. Tissue Antigens
1998;52(4):318–352. [PubMed: 9820597]
19. Foissac A, Crouau-Roy B, Faure S, Thomsen M, Cambon-Thomsen A. Microsatellites in the HLA
region: an overview. Tissue Antigens 1997;49(3 Pt 1):197–214. [PubMed: 9098926]
20. ASHI Governance. Standards for histocompatibility testing, 1998, P2.151.
21. European Federation for Immunogenetics. Modifications of the EFI standards for histocompatibility
testing, 1996, P2.3100.
22. Peyret N, Seneviratne P A, Allawi H T, SantaLucia J Jr. Nearest-neighbor thermodynamics and NMR
of DNA sequences with internal A.A. C.C, G.G, and T.T mismatches. Biochemistry 1999;38:3468–
The NCBI Handbook

3477. [PubMed: 10090733]

The NCBI Handbook

The Databases
The NCBI Handbook

Sequin: A Sequence Submission and Editing Tool

[Chapter 12]

Jonathan Kans

Summary
Sequin is a stand-alone sequence record editor, designed for preparing new sequences for submission
to GenBank and for editing existing records. Sequin runs on the most popular computer platforms
found in biology laboratories, including PC, Macintosh, UNIX, and Linux. It can handle a wide range
The NCBI Handbook

of sequence lengths and complexities, including entire chromosomes and large datasets from
population or phylogenetic studies. Sequin is also used within NCBI by the GenBank and Reference
Sequence indexers for routine processing of records before their release.
Sequin has a modular construction, which simplifies its use, design, and implementation. Sequin
relies on many components of the NCBI Toolkit and thus acts as a quality assurance that these
functions are working properly.
Detailed information on how to use Sequin to submit records to GenBank or edit sequence records
can be found in the Sequin Quick Guide. Although this chapter will make frequent reference to that
help document, the focus will be mostly on the underlying concepts and software components upon
which Sequin is built.

Sequin: A Brief Overview

As input, Sequin takes a biological sequence(s) from a scientist wanting to submit or edit
The NCBI Handbook

sequence data. The sequence (or set of sequences) can be new information that has not yet been
assigned a GenBank Accession number, or it can be an existing GenBank sequence record. If
Sequin is being used to submit a sequence(s) to GenBank, then the scientist is prompted to
include his/her contact information, information about other authors, and the sequence, at the
start of the submission process. Once all the necessary information has been entered, it is then
possible to view the sequence in a variety of displays and edit it using Sequin's suite of editing
tools.

Sequin is designed for use by people with different levels of expertise. Thus, it has several
built-in functions that can, for example, ensure that a new user submits a valid sequence record
to GenBank, or it can be prompted to automatically generate a sequence definition line. At the
other end of the scale, for computer-literate users, Sequin can be customized by the addition
of more (perhaps research-specific) analysis functions. Furthermore, there are some extremely
powerful functions built into Sequin that are only available to NCBI Indexing staff. These are
switched off by default in the public download version of Sequin because they include the
The NCBI Handbook

ability to make the kinds of changes to a sequence record that can also completely destroy it,
if handled incorrectly. These various built-in Sequin functions are discussed further below.

Sequin's versatility is based on its design: (a) Sequin holds the sequence(s) being manipulated
in memory, in a structured format that allows a rapid response to the commands initiated by
the person who is using Sequin; and (b) it makes use of many standard functions found in the
NCBI Toolkit for both basic data manipulations and as components of Sequin-specific tasks.
In particular, Sequin makes heavy use of the Toolkit's object manager, a “behind the scenes”
support system that keeps track of Sequin's internal data structures and the relationships of
each piece of information to others. This allows many of Sequin's functions to operate
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

independently of each other, making data manipulation much faster and making the program
easier to maintain.

Sequence Submission
Sequin is used to edit and submit sequences to GenBank and handles a wide range of sequence
lengths and complexities. After downloading and installing Sequin, a scientist wanting to
submit or edit a sequence(s) is led through a series of forms to input information about the
sequence to be submitted. The forms are “smart”, and different forms will appear, customized
to the type of submission. Detailed information on how to fill in these forms can be found
within the Help feature of the Sequin application itself and in the online Help documents.

Sequin expects sequence data in FASTA formatted files, which should be prepared as plain
text before uploading them into Sequin. Population, phylogenetic, and mutation studies can
also be entered in PHYLIP, NEXUS, MACAW, or FASTA+GAP formats.
The NCBI Handbook

A sequence in FASTA format consists of a definition line, which starts with a “>”, and the
sequence itself, which starts on a new line directly below the definition line. The definition
line should contain the name or identifier of the sequence but may also include other useful
information. In the case of nucleotides, the name of the source organism and strain should be
included; for proteins, it is useful to include the gene and protein names. Given all this
information, Sequin can automatically assemble a record suitable for inclusion in GenBank
(see below). Detailed information on how to prepare FASTA files for Sequin can be found in
the Quick Guide.

Single Sequences
For single nucleotide sequence submissions to GenBank, the submitter supplies Sequin with
the nucleotide sequence and any translated protein sequence(s). For example, a submission
consisting of a nucleotide from mouse strain BALB/c that contains the β-hemoglobin gene,
encoding the adult major chain β-hemoglobin protein, would have two sequences with the
The NCBI Handbook

following definition lines, where “BALB23g” and “BALB23p” are nucleotide and protein IDs
provided by the submitter:

> BALB23g [organism=Mus musculus] [strain=BALB/c]

> BALB23p [gene=Hbb-b1] [protein=hemoglobin, beta adult major chain]

The organism name is essential to make a legal GenBank flatfile. It can be included in the
definition line as shown above, for the convenience of the submitter, or one of the Sequin
submission forms will prompt for its clarity.

Although it is not necessary to include a protein translation with the nucleotide submission,
scientists are strongly encouraged to do so because this, along with the source organism
information, enables Sequin to automatically calculate the coding region (CDS) on the
nucleotide being submitted. Furthermore, with gene and protein names properly annotated, the
record becomes informative to other scientists who may retrieve it through a BLAST or Entrez
The NCBI Handbook

search (see also Chapter 15 and Chapter 16).

Segmented Nucleotide Sets

A segmented nucleotide entry is a set of non-contiguous sequences that has a defined order
and orientation. For example, a genomic DNA segmented set could include encoding exons
along with fragments of their flanking introns. An example of an mRNA segmented pair of
records would be the 5′ and 3′ ends of an mRNA where the middle region has not been

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

sequenced. To import nucleotides in a segmented set, each individual sequence must be in

FASTA format with an appropriate definition line, and all sequences should be in the same
file.

High-Throughput Genomic Sequences

Genome Sequencing Centers use automated sequencing machines to rapidly produce large
quantities of “unfinished” DNA sequence, called high-throughput genomic sequence (HTGS).
These sequences are not usually annotated with any features, such as coding regions, at all,
and in the initial phases are not of high (“finished”) quality.

The sequencing machines produce intensity traces for the four fluorescent dyes that correspond
to the four bases adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Software such as PHRED and
PHRAP convert these raw traces into the sequence letters A, C, G, or T. PHRED is a base-
calling program that “reads” the sequences of the DNA fragments and produces a quality score.
With multiple overlapping reads to work on, PHRAP assembles the DNA fragments using the
The NCBI Handbook

quality scores of PHRED, itself producing a quality score for each base. The resulting file,
which PHRAP outputs in “.ace” format, consists of the sequence itself plus the associated
quality scores. Sequin can use these files as input and assemble valid GenBank records from
them. Further information on using Sequin to prepare a HTGS record can be found here.

Feature Tables
Some Genome Centers now analyze their sequences and record the base positions of a number
of sequence features such as the gene, mRNA, or coding regions. Sequin can capture this
information and include it in a GenBank submission as long as it is formatted correctly in a
feature table. Sequin can read a simple, five-column, tab-delimited file in which the first and
second columns are the start and stop locations of the feature, respectively, the third column
is the type of feature (the feature key—gene, mRNA, CDS, etc.), the fourth column is the
qualifier name (e.g., “product”), and the fifth the qualifier value (e.g., the name of the protein
or gene). The features for an entire bacterial genome can be read in seconds using this format.
The NCBI Handbook

A sample features table is shown below.

>Feature sde3g
240 4048 gene
gene SDE3
240 1361 mRNA
1450 1614
1730 3184
3275 4048
product RNA helicase SDE3
579 1361 CDS
1450 1614
1730 3184
3275 3880
The NCBI Handbook

product RNA helicase SDE3

Alignments
Population, phylogenetic, and mutation studies all involve the alignment of a number of
sequences with each other so that regions of sequence similarity are emphasized. Sometimes
it is necessary to introduce gaps into the sequences to give the best alignment. Sequin reads

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

several output formats from sequence and phylogenetic analysis programs, including PHYLIP,
NEXUS, PAUP, or FASTA+GAP.

The submitted sequence alignment represents the relationship between sequences. This
inferred relationship allows Sequin to propagate features annotated on one sequence to the
equivalent positions on the remaining sequences in the alignment. Feature propagation is one
of the many editing functions possible in Sequin. Using this tool significantly reduces the time
required to annotate an alignment submission.

Automated Submission
tbl2asn is a program that automates the submission of sequence records to GenBank. It uses
many of the same functions as Sequin but is driven entirely by data files, and records need no
additional manual editing before submission. Entire genomes, consisting of many
chromosomes with feature annotation, can be processed in seconds using this method.
The NCBI Handbook

Packaging the Submissions

Sequences given to Sequin in the input data formats described in this chapter are retained within
Sequin memory, allowing them to be manipulated in real time. For example, for submission
to GenBank, the sequence is transformed from the Sequin internal structure to Abstract Syntax
Notation 1 (ASN.1), the data description language in which GenBank records are stored. This
is the format transmitted over the Internet when submitting to GenBank. Sequin can also output
information in other formats, such as GenBank flatfile or XML, for saving to a local file.

Most sequence submissions are packaged into a BioseqSet, which contains one or more
sequences (Bioseqs), along with supporting information that has been included by the
submitter, such as source organism, type of molecule, sequence length, and so on (Figure 1).
There are different classes of BioseqSets; thus, a simple single nucleotide submission is called
a nuc-prot set (a BioseqSet of class nuc-prot) containing the nucleotide and protein Bioseqs.
Similarly, population, phylogenetic, and mutation sequences, along with alignments, are
The NCBI Handbook

packaged into BioseqSets of classes pop-set, phy-set, and mut-set, respectively. The alignment
information is extracted into a Seq-align, which is packaged as annotation (Seq-annot)
associated with the BioseqSet. In the case of PHRAP quality scores, these are converted into
a Seq-graph, which, similar to alignment information, is packaged in a Seq-annot; however,
in this case it is associated with the nucleotide sequence and not the higher-level BioseqSet.
The Seq-graph of PHRAP scores can be displayed in Sequin's Graphical view.
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The internal structure of a sequence record in Sequin, as seen in the Desktop window
The display can be understood as a Venn diagram. Selecting the up or down arrow expands or
contracts, respectively, the level of detail shown. In a typical submission of a protein-coding
gene, a BioseqSet (of class “nuc-prot”) contains two Bioseqs, one for the nucleotide and one
for the protein. Descriptors, such as BioSrc, can be packaged on the set and thus apply to all
Bioseqs within the set. Features allow annotation on specific regions of a sequence. For
example, the CDS location provides instructions to translate the DNA sequence into the protein
product.
The NCBI Handbook

Features are usually packaged on the sequence indicated by their location. For example, the
gene feature is packaged on the nucleotide Bioseq, and a protein feature is packaged on the
protein Bioseq. Proteins are real sequences, and features such as mature peptides are annotated
on the proteins in protein coordinates (although they can be mapped to nucleotide coordinates
for display in a GenBank flatfile). A CDS (coding region) feature location points to the
nucleotide, but the feature product points to the protein. For historical reasons, the CDS is
usually packaged on the nuc-prot set instead of on the nucleotide sequence.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

Viewing and Editing the Sequences

After the record has been constructed, the features can be viewed in a variety of display formats
(Table 1). These include the traditional GenBank or GenPept flatfiles, a graphical overview,
the feature spans displayed over the actual sequence letters, and ASN.1. These formats are
generated by components of the NCBI Toolkit.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
The display formats available in Sequin
Format Notes

Alignment For sets of aligned sequences

ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation 1 format

Desktop The internal structure of a record

EMBL As the record would appear in the EMBL database

FASTA FASTA format

GBSeq XML structured representation of GenBank format

GenBank As the record would appear in GenBank or DDBJ

GenPept Flatfile view of a protein

The NCBI Handbook

Graphic Graphical representation of the sequence (several styles are available)

Quality Displays the quality scores for each base in biological order

Sequence Nucleotide sequence as letters plus any annotated features

Summary Similar to graphical view but with no labels

Table Sequin's 5-column feature table format

XML eXtensible Markup Language, representation of ASN.1 data

The different format generators all work independently from one another. When Sequin starts
up, it registers a set of function procedures used to generate each display format. While issuing
Sequin commands during manipulation of the sequence, appropriate messages (for example,
“generate the view from the internal sequence record”, “highlight this feature”, “export the
view to the clipboard”, etc.) are sent to the viewer by calling one of these procedures. Separate
lists of registered formats are maintained for nucleotide, protein, and genome record types.

Just as the different format generators do not need to know about each other, Sequin's viewer
The NCBI Handbook

windows do not need to know about other Sequin viewer or editor windows that are active at
the same time. When editing a sequence, the user may have several different views of the same
sequence open at the same time (for example, a GenBank flatfile and a graphical view).
Clicking on a feature in the graphical view will select the same feature in the GenBank flatfile,
and double-clicking on a feature launches the specific editor for that feature. This type of
communication between different windows is orchestrated by the NCBI Toolkit's object
manager.

The Sequence Editor

The sequence editor is used like a text editor, with new sequence added at the position of the
cursor. Furthermore, the sequence editor automatically adjusts the biological feature intervals
as editing proceeds. For example, if 60 bases are pasted or typed onto the 5′ end of a sequence
record, the sequence editor will shift all the features by 60 bases. This means that interval
correction does not need to be done by hand. Prior to Sequin, it was usually easier to resubmit
from scratch than to edit all of the feature intervals manually.
The NCBI Handbook

The Feature Editors

Feature editor windows have a common structure, organized by tabs (Figures 2–4). The first
tab is for elements specific to the given feature (Figure 2). For example, in a coding region
editor, the first tab has controls for entering the coding region and reading frame. The second
tab is for elements common to all sequence features (Figure 3). These include an exception
flag, which allows explanations to be given for unusual events (e.g., RNA editing or non-

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

consensus splice sites) and a comment (a free-text statement shown as “/note” in the flatfile).
The last tab is a location spreadsheet allowing multiple feature intervals to be entered (Figure
4). For a coding region, these would reflect the boundaries of the exons used to encode the
protein.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The first feature editor tab, Coding Region, allows entry of information specific to the given type
of feature
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Properties tab is for entry of information common to all types of features
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Location tab has a spreadsheet for entry of feature locations

Computational Functions of Sequin

Sequin combines several NCBI Toolkit functions to perform many useful computations on the
The NCBI Handbook

data in Sequin's memory.

Automatic Annotation of Coding Regions

When a nucleotide is submitted to GenBank using Sequin, it is essential to give the name of
the source organism. The submitter is also strongly encouraged to supply the translated protein
sequence(s) for the nucleotide.

Supplying the organism name allows Sequin to automatically find and use the correct genetic
code for translating the nucleotide sequence to protein for the most frequently sequenced
organisms. On the basis of only the genetic code and sequences of the nucleotide and protein
products, Sequin will then calculate the location of the protein-coding region(s) on the
nucleotide sequence. This is an extremely powerful function of Sequin. The ability to do this
automatically, instead of by hand, has made sequence submission much faster and less error-
prone.
The NCBI Handbook

Sequin uses a reverse translating alignment algorithm, called Suggest Intervals, to locate the
protein-coding region(s) on the nucleotide sequence. The algorithm builds a table of the
positions of all possible stretches of three amino acids in the protein. It then translates the
nucleotide in all six reading frames and searches for a match to one of these triplets. When it
finds one, it attempts to extend the match on each side of the initial hit. If the extension hits a
mismatch or an intron, it stops. Given these candidate regions of matching, Sequin then tries
to find the best set of other identical regions that will generate a complete protein. While doing

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

this, the algorithm takes splice sites into account when deciding where to start an intron in
eukaryotic sequences and fuses regions split by a single amino acid mismatch.

Updating Sequence Records

The ability to propagate features through an alignment and the way the sequence editor can
adjust feature positions as the sequence is edited are combined in Sequin to provide a simple
and automatic method for updating an existing sequence.

The Update Sequence function allows overlapping sequence or a replacement sequence to be

included in an existing sequence record. Sequin makes an alignment (using the BLAST
functions in the NCBI Toolkit), merges the sequence if necessary, and propagates features onto
the new sequence in the new positions. This effectively replaces the old sequence and features.
The Update Sequence function is based on the NCBI Toolkit's alignment indexing, which
allows Sequin to produce several displays that help the user to confirm that the correct sequence
is in fact being processed (Figure 5).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Update Sequence window

The top panel shows the overall relationship between the two sequences, including the parts
that align and any parts that do not align. From these data, Sequin determines whether the user
is updating with a 5′ overlap, 3′ overlap, or full replacement sequence, and it presets radio
buttons to indicate the relationship. The second panel shows a simple graphical view of the
positions of gaps and base mismatches in the old and new sequences. The third panel shows
the same information but with the actual sequence letters. Clicking on the second panel scrolls
to the same place in the third panel.
The NCBI Handbook

The Validator
The final version of the sequence, complete with all the annotated features, can be checked
using the validator. This function checks for consistency and for the presence of required
information for submission to GenBank. The validator searches for missing organism
information, incorrect coding-region lengths (compared to the submitted protein sequence),
internal stop codons in coding regions, mismatched amino acids, and non-consensus splice

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

sites. Double-clicking on an item in the error report launches an editor on the “offending”
feature. The NCBI Toolkit has a program (testval), which is a stand-alone version of the
validator.

The validator also checks for inconsistency between nucleotide and protein sequences,
especially in coding regions, the protein product, and the protein feature on the product. For
example, if the coding region is marked as incomplete at the 5′ end, the protein product and
protein feature should be marked as incomplete at the amino end. (Unless told otherwise, the
CDS editor will automatically synchronize these anomalies, facilitating the correction of this
kind of inconsistency.)

Additional checks include ensuring that all features are annotated within the range of the
sequence, all feature location intervals are noted on the same DNA strand, tRNA codons
conform to the given genetic code, and that there are no duplicate features or different genes
with the same names. The validator even checks that the sequence letters are valid for the
The NCBI Handbook

indicated alphabet (e.g., the letter "E" may appear in proteins but not in nucleotides).

In cases where an exception has been flagged in a feature editor, specific validator tests can be
disabled. For example, if the reason given for an exception is “RNA editing”, this turns off
CDS translation checking in the validator. Likewise, “ribosomal slippage” disables exon splice
checking, and “trans splicing” suppresses the error message that usually appears when feature
intervals are indicated on different DNA strands.

Automatic Definition Line Generator

NCBI has a preferred format for the definition line in the GenBank format. It starts with the
organism name, then the names of the protein products of coding regions (with the gene name
in parentheses), with “complete” or “partial” at the end:

DEFINITION Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 isolate ES-TMD

The NCBI Handbook

envelope
glycoprotein (env) gene, partial cds.

There is also a standard style for explaining alternative splice products. Sequin's Automatic
Definition Line Generator collects CDS, RNA, and exon features in the order that they appear
on the nucleotide sequence, finds the relevant genes (usually by location overlap), and prepares
a definition line that conforms to GenBank policy.

Recalculation of Multiple CDS Features

In spite of all the safeguards built into Sequin, a submitter sometimes uses an incorrect genetic
code for an organism. This means that the protein products of CDS translations may be
incorrect. Sequin can retranslate all CDS features with a single command. Even so, if the
sequence being edited is large, for example, a whole chromosome, this can be a time-consuming
operation. To speed it up, the NCBI Toolkit uses a finite state machine (an efficient pattern
search algorithm) for rapid translation. The machine is primed with a given genetic code, and
The NCBI Handbook

then nucleotide sequence letters are fed into the algorithm one at a time, in the order they appear
in the sequence. This allows all six frames (three frames on each strand) to be translated in the
least possible time. The Open Reading Frame search in the NCBI Toolkit's tbl2asn program
also uses this function.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

Advanced Topics
The Special Menu
The Special Menu of Sequin encompasses a powerful set of tools that are available to GenBank
and Reference Sequence indexers only. The Special Menu is not available to the public in the
standard release because without a thorough understanding of the NCBI Data Model, use of
the functions can cause irreparable damage to a record. It allows indexers to globally edit
features, qualifiers, or descriptors in all sequences in a record, so that the same correction does
not have to be made at each occurrence of the error. For example, all CDS features with internal
stop codons can be converted to pseudogenes. Another common error made by submitters is
to enter a repeat unit (a rpt_unit; e.g., ATTGG) in the repeat-type field (a rpt_type; e.g., tandem
repeat). The Special Menu allows indexing staff to convert rpt_type to rpt_unit throughout the
record.

NCBI Desktop Window

The NCBI Handbook

Although Sequin has editors for changing specific fields and Special Menu functions for doing
bulk changes on several features, it is not possible to anticipate all of the manipulations NCBI
indexers might need to do to clean up a problem record. The NCBI Desktop window shows
the internal structure of a record (Figure 1), i.e., how Bioseqs are packaged within Bioseq-sets,
and where features, alignments, graphs, and descriptors are packaged on the sequences or sets.
Objects (sets, sequences, features, etc.) can be dragged out of the record or moved to a different
place in the record. Such manipulations could break the validity of the sequence record;
therefore, great care must be taken when using it.

For technically adept Sequin users, the Desktop is where additional analysis functions can be
added to Sequin without building a complicated user interface. With a feature or sequence
selected, items in the Filter menu perform specific analyses on the selected objects. The
standard filters include reverse, complement, and reverse complement of a sequence, and
reverse complement of a sequence and all of its features. These are needed to repair the
occasional record that came in on the wrong strand or in 3′→5′ direction. Adding new filter
The NCBI Handbook

functions requires adding code to one of the Sequin source code files (one is provided with no
other code in it for this purpose) and recompiling the program.

Network Analysis Functions

The functions of Sequin can be expanded by the addition of a configuration file that specifies
the URLs for other programs (CGI scripts) available from the Internet. For example,
tRNAscan-SE, a program by Sean Eddy and colleagues at Washington University (St. Louis,
MO), can be used on sequences in Sequin in this way.

At a minimum, the CGI should be able to read FASTA format and should return either sequence
data or the five-column feature table (discussed above) as its result. The external programs that
Sequin knows about appear in the Analysis menu. When one of these analyses is triggered,
Sequin sends a message to the URL and checks for the result with a timer so that the user can
continue to work while the (Web) server is processing the request. The code for the CGI that
chaperones data from Sequin to tRNAscan-SE and converts the tRNAscan results to a five-
The NCBI Handbook

column feature table is in the demo directory of the public NCBI Toolkit.

Network Fetch Functions

As sequencing of complete bacterial genomes and eukaryotic chromosomes becomes more
commonplace, the demand to break up long sequences into more manageable bites has
increased (although Sequin is perfectly capable of editing these large records). Some genomes
at NCBI are thus represented as segmented (or delta) Bioseqs, which are composed of pointers

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

to other raw sequences in GenBank. Obtaining the entire sequence and all of the features
requires fetching the individual components from a network service.

The object manager allows Sequin to know about different fetch functions that can be used.
When a sequence is needed, these functions will be called until one of them satisfies the request.
For example, the lsqfetch configuration file can be edited to point to a directory containing
sequence files on a user's disk. The SeqFetch function calls a network service at NCBI to obtain
sequences and to look up Accession numbers given gi numbers or gi numbers given Accession
numbers.

When used internally by NCBI indexers, Sequin can also fetch records from the DirSub and
TMSmart databases. To ensure the confidentiality of pre-released records, this access requires
the indexer to have a database password and to be working from a computer within NCBI. For
additional protection, the paths to the database scripts are stored in a configuration file and are
not encoded in the public Sequin source code.
The NCBI Handbook

Conclusion
Sequin has an important dual role as a primary submission tool and as a full-featured sequence
record editor. It is designed to be modular on several levels, which simplifies the design and
implementation of its components. Sequin sits at the top of the NCBI software Toolkit, relying
on many of the underlying components, and thus acts as a quality assurance that these functions
are working properly.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

The NCBI Handbook

The Processing of Biological Sequence Data at NCBI

[Chapter 13]

Karl Sirotkin
Tatiana Tatusova
Eugene Yaschenko
Mark Cavanaugh
The NCBI Handbook

The biological sequence information that builds the foundation of NCBI's databases and
curated resources comes from many sources. How are these data managed and processed once
they reach NCBI? This chapter discusses the flow of sequence data, from the management of
data submission to the generation of publicly available data products.

Overview
The central dogma of molecular biology asserts that sequences flow from DNA to RNA to
protein. In Entrez, DNA and RNA sequences are retrieved together as nucleotides and then
integrated, along with proteins, into the NCBI system. Once in the system nucleotides and
proteins are both available for public use in at least three ways:
1 The Entrez system (Chapter 15) retrieves nucleotide and protein sequences according
to text queries that are entered into the search box. Text queries can be followed by
search fields, such as author, definition line, and organism (for example, "homo
sapiens"[orgn]), and are used to further define raw sequence data being used for
The NCBI Handbook

retrieval.
2 The sequences themselves can be searched directly by using BLAST (Chapter 16),
which uses a sequence as a query to find similar sequences.
3 Large subsets of sequences can be downloaded by FTP.
There are many sources for both nucleotide and protein sequences. Sequences submitted
directly to GenBank (Chapter 1) or replicated from one of our two collaborating databases, the
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Data Library and the DNA Data Bank of
Japan (DDBJ), are the major sources. The Reference Sequence collection (Chapter 18) and the
UniProt database, which incorporates data from SWISS-PROT, are yet additional sources.

An information management system that consists of two major components, the ID database
and the IQ database, underlies the submission, storage, and access of GenBank, BLAST, and
other curated data resources (such as the Reference Sequences (Chapter 18), the Map Viewer
(Chapter 20), or Entrez Gene (Chapter 19)). Whereas ID handles incoming sequences and feeds
The NCBI Handbook

other databases with subsets to suit different needs, IQ holds links between sequences stored
in ID and between these sequences and other resources.

Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) Is the Data Format Used by the ID System
ASN.1 is the data description language in which all sequence data at NCBI are structured.
ASN.1 allows a detailed description of both the sequences and the information associated with
them, such as author names, source organism, and biological features (known as “features”).
The image below shows FEATURES as displayed in GenBank format.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

In the ASN.1 format, the organism information is presented as shown below. You can also see
a complete ASN.1 record.

orgname { name binomial { genus "Macaca" , species "mulatta" } ,

Maintaining all data in the same structured format simplifies data parsing, manipulation, and
The NCBI Handbook

quality assurance, and eases the task of data integration and software development for sequence
analysis. All of the various divisions of GenBank can be downloaded in ASN.1 from the NCBI
FTP site. In the ID data management system, data are stored as ASN.1 blobs, minimizing the
amount of biological information that is captured and updated in the relational database schema.

Similar to an XML DTD, ASN.1 has an associated file that contains the description of the legal
data structure. This file is called asn.all and is available as part of the “C” toolkit in an archive
named “ncbi.tar.gz” located in the FTP directory. When unpacked, the directory “/demo”,
found in the “ncbi.tar.gz” archive, contains the asn.all file. In the same “/demo” directory is
testval.c, a tool that validates the data against asn.all. Additionally, a set of utilities for
producing ASN.1 while programming in “C” is found in the subutil.c file of the “/api” directory,
which is unpacked from the same “ncbi.tar.gz” archive.

Sources of Sequence Data

The sequence data available at NCBI comes from many different sources (Figure 1). In
The NCBI Handbook

summary, the data consist of:

• GenBank sequences (Chapter 1)
• Reference sequences (Chapter 18)
• sequences from other databases, such as SWISS-PROT, PIR, PRF, and PDB
• sequences from the United States patents

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

The submission pathway depends on the data source (see Figure 1) and volume. HTGS and
other large-volume submitters use FTP, usually after converting their data to ASN.1 with tools
such as tabl2asn. Small-volume submitters typically use either BankIt (Chapter 1) or Sequin
(Chapter 12) to prepare the ASN.1 for submission.

The data received are then subjected to some quality control by the submission tools BankIt,
Sequin, and fa2htgs. These tools have built-in validation mechanisms to check if the data
submitted have the correct structure and contain the essential information. The work of the
GenBank indexing staff, who uses Sequin, adds one more layer of quality control and provides
assistance to submitters. The staff also helps with the use of Sequin for complex submissions

Data Flow Components

The ID Database
The ID database is a group of standard relational databases that holds both ASN.1 objects and
The NCBI Handbook

sequence identifier-related information. ASN.1 objects follow the specifications in the asn.all
file for NCBI sequence data objects. ID holds data for GenBank and the many databases in the
Entrez system. Details of the architecture of relational ID databases and the software associated
with them are described later in this chapter. All of the sequences from the International
Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC)are in GenBank, and they all have
Accession numbers assigned to them. Accession numbers point to sequences and their
associated biological information and annotation.

In the ID database, blobs are added into a single column of a relational database. Although the
columns behave as in a relational database, the information that makes each blob, such as
biological features, raw sequence data, and author information, are neither parsed nor split out.
In this sense, the ID database can be considered as a hybrid database that stores complex objects.

Note: Blob stands for Binary Large Object (or binary data object) and refers to a large piece
of data, a large structured data object that can be stored as a unit and processed by software
The NCBI Handbook

that knows the structure. For more information, check the Glossary of The NCBI Handbook.

Versions, GIs, Annotation Changes, and Takeovers

Every time a change is made to a sequence, a new version of the sequence is produced. This
new version has a new GI number (GI or GenInfo Identifier is a sequence identification number
for a nucleotide sequence) assigned to it (A and B in the image below). When a change is made
to the annotation associated with a sequence, a new blob is produced, but no new version or
GI is assigned. This series of events marks the history of the sequence since its first days in
GenBank.

You can track annotation and sequence changes, as well as the “takeover” of one record by
another by using the Sequence Revision History tool. The tool can be accessed from the side
blue bar in Entrez Nucleotide and Entrez Protein and is used to highlight differences in sequence
versions and annotations. To understand how the History tool works, let’s examine the history
of the Gallus gallus doublesex and mab-3 related transcription factor 1 mRNA (Accession
AF123456), which was first added to GenBank March 20, 1999.
The NCBI Handbook

Click on Check sequence revision history in the blue side bar of Entrez Nucleotide or Entrez
Protein to be directed to the Sequence Revision History page. Enter the Accession or GI
numbers or the FASTA-style Sequence IDs (SeqIds) into the Find box. The Revision history
for AF123456 is displayed.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The Update Date column (C in the image above) contains the date of every update to AF123456.
Some involve sequence changes, others involve only annotation changes. Click on a date in
the column to retrieve AF123456 as it existed at that point in time. The status column (D)
reports which version is live and which ones are dead. Columns I and II (E) are used to compare
two different sequences.

Notice that on Mar 23 1999, at 1:24 PM, a new ASN.1 blob was produced for Accession
AF12345. However, no new GI number (A) or version (B) was assigned because the changes
were limited to the annotation and biological features of the sequence, with no changes made
to the sequence data. On December 23, 1999, Accession AF123456 gained a new GI (6633795)
and version (Version 2) because in this case a change was made to the sequence data.
The NCBI Handbook

Compare the two blobs produced on March 23, 1999 and December 23, 1999 to see the
difference between them.
• Start by accessing the Revision history for AF12345.
• Select one sequence in each column (I or II) as shown in the image above (E).
• Push the Show button at the upper left of the page to display the two blobs (G).
The differences between blobs are highlighted, with each blob displaying a different color.
Compare ASN.1 blobs produced on March 20, 1999 and March 23, 1999 and you will see that
the differences between the two are limited to the annotation and biological features described
in the blobs, whereas the sequence data remain the same.

The understanding of the biological features related to a sequence can change with or without
a change in the underlying genetic sequence. For example, the sequence revision history of
J00179 reveals that although the annotation changed four times, there has been only one
sequence version (J00179) with one GI (183807). J00179 can still be retrieved in Entrez by
The NCBI Handbook

searching its Accession or GI number, but this record has been replaced by Accession
U01317 and therefore is no longer indexed. The version number assigned to the “take over”
record U01317 is 1, whereas the replaced version of this record (J00179) remains as Version
0. All sequences deposited before February 1999 received no sequence version, that’s why
J00179 is version zero. In February 1999, the use of a sequence version was implemented, and
all sequences deposited in GenBank at that time received a version number 1. Since then,

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

ordinals assigned to sequence versions have increased every time a change is made to the
sequence data.

The use of both systems, Version and GI, leads to two parallel ways of tracking sequence
versions for an object. In the GenBank flatfile, the Accession Version provides the ordinal
instance (version) of the sequence. Within ID, each unique sequence is assigned a GI number;
and therefore the instances of an Accession can be tracked by checking its chain of GI numbers.
Note that Accession and Accession Version are different things, with the former been used to
designate a DNA sequence of some molecule or piece of some molecule deposited in GenBank
and the latter to indicate the version of that sequence. A single Accession can have many GIs
that are assigned every time the sequence changes, whereas an Accession Version has only
one GI.

Within the ID relational databases, there is a chain identifier that can be used to link these GI
numbers. Not all sequences within ID are in GenBank and not all have sequence versions, but
The NCBI Handbook

all sequences have a chain of GI numbers. For this reason, internally, the GI number is the
universal pointer to a particular sequence, as opposed to the Accession Version, which would
work only for versioned sequences. The ID database is also the controller for allowed
“takeovers” of one Accession by another. In the example above, GI 4454562 is taken over by
GI 6633795. A takeover can also occur when the sequences of two clones are merged into a
single clone. One or several of the Accessions of older clones can be taken over by a new
Accession.

Output of Data from the ID System

Once all incoming data have been converted to ASN.1 format and entered into ID, the data are
then replicated into several different servers and transformed into several different formats
(Figure 2). The replication is necessary for a number of reasons: (i) it separates the “incoming”
data system (ID) from the “outgoing” data which is the data used in response to scientific
queries by users; (ii) it helps balance the load of queries, thus providing quicker response times
and allowing different servers to specialize in different functions; and (iii) it protects against
The NCBI Handbook

data loss should one server fail. The details of the internal structure of the ID system and how
the structure is replicated are discussed in the Data Flow Architecture section.

The IQ Database
The IQ database is a Sybase data-warehousing product that preserves its SQL language
interface but which inverts its data by storing it by column, not by row. Its strength is in its
ability to speed up results from queries based on the anticipated indexing. This non-relational
database holds links between many different objects.

For example, as part of the processing of incoming sequences, each protein and nucleotide
sequence is searched for similar sequences (Chapter 16) against the rest of the database. Users
can then select the Related Sequences link that is displayed next to each record in Entrez
Nucleotide and Entrez Protein (Chapter 15) to see a set of similar sequences, sometimes known
as “neighbors”. The IQ database keeps track of the neighbors for any given sequence. These
relationships are all pre-computed to save users’ time.
The NCBI Handbook

IQ stores the relationships between similar nucleotide sequences and between similar protein
sequences and which proteins are coded for by which nucleotides and also holds information
on the links between entries in different Entrez databases. This might include, for example,
information on the publications cited within sequence records, which links to PubMed or to
an organism in the Taxonomy database. Some of this information comes from the analysis of

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

the ASN.1 in ID by e2index, a tool that extracts terms from NCBI sequence ASN.1 during
“indexing” for Entrez.

The BLAST Control Database

The BLAST Control database receives information from ID that is used to generate BLAST
databases (Chapter 16) for the BLAST query service and for stand-alone BLAST users. The
information is used internally to generate the sequence neighbors stored in IQ.

The GenBank Flatfile and Error Capture Databases

Many NCBI users think of the GenBank flatfile as the archetypal sequence data format (see
an example of a GenBank flatfile). However, within NCBI and especially within the ID internal
data flow system, ASN.1 is considered the original format from which reports such as the
GenBank flatfile can be generated (see an example of an ASN.1 file).
The NCBI Handbook

Although the GenBank flatfile is usually generated on demand from the ASN.1, for certain
products such as complete GenBank releases, a GenBank flatfile image is made for each active
sequence. This flatfile is stored in a database called FF4Release, which consists of the latest
transformation of ASN.1 to the GenBank flatfile format.

The FF4Release database is also a place where internal error reports are captured. The reports
can be analyzed and displayed for different time points in the data processing pathway:
• ASN.1 itself can be validated using the testval (or its replacement, asnval) tool—syntax
checking is not necessary, because the underlying ASN.1 libraries enforce proper
syntax according to the definition file.
• Errors can be discovered during conversion to the GenBank flatfile format.
• Through a reparse from the GenBank flatfile format to ASN.1. This is done as a further
check for legality of the ASN.1, and our current software for producing GenBank
format reports from it.
The NCBI Handbook

Entrez Postings Files

When sequences are submitted to GenBank or one of our collaborating databases, additional
information about the sequence is often included. This might be a brief description of a gene
in the definition line, along with annotated sequence features such as the source organism name.
To make this information searchable via Entrez, these words have to be indexed. They are
extracted from the ASN.1 using e2index and then stored in the Entrez posting files, which are
optimized for Boolean queries by the Entrez system (see Chapter 15).

All of these products from the ID system are listed in Table 1. NCBI also generates weekly
“LiveLists” for public, collaborator, and in-house use. LiveLists show all Accession numbers
currently in use. Accession numbers that have been replaced or otherwise removed from
circulation because of error or submitter request are not in the LiveList.

Data Flow Architecture

The NCBI Handbook

Sequences enter ID when a client (internal to NCBI) loads data into the system. The ASN.1
data can be loaded either through a stand-alone program or a client API. In both cases, the data
are submitted to ID through IDProdOS, an open server (commonly called “middleware”) that
sits between the clients and the database system. An overview of the flow of sequence data
through the ID architecture with its multiple components is shown in Figure 3 and discussed
below.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

IDProdOS hides details of the underlying complexity from the client API, which was shown
to be useful when the previous version of the ID system (a single database and an open server)
was converted to the current system without requiring any changes to the clients.

IDProdOS does an initial check of the actions required by the load. For example, in a record
that has DNA and protein sequences, including annotation and sequence identifiers, the
identifier on the protein has to be unique. The same identifier should not be given to an outdated
DNA sequence and a current sequence, unless the current sequence has replaced the old one.
That’s because proteins, generally, are not allowed to move between GenBank records,
although proteins moving between segments of a complete genome submission are sometimes
allowed.

Additional checking is performed by stored procedures in the IdMain database. The details of
what is allowed vary according to the source of the ASN.1, which includes direct submissions
from collaborators and the NCBI RefSeq project. These procedures check (i) which sequence
The NCBI Handbook

identifiers may be used, (ii) which sequences may be replaced by which other sequences, and
(iii) which sequence version may be used in a record.

If the sequences pass all these checks, three things happen: (i) IDProdOS changes the SeqId
pointers in the blob to GI numbers, which are now used as sequence-specific pointers, (ii)
IdMain retains the sequence identifier information that was also used for the checking, and (iii)
IDProdOS loads the ASN.1 blobs to the blob satellites.

The IdMain database contains the sequence identifiers for each of the sequence records,
including all those for ASN.1 blobs that contain multiple sequences. It enforces sequence
version rules, among other rules.

Relational satellite databases are fully normalized databases that hold records for which there
is only one sequence per intended ASN.1 blob. Few, if any, features are allowed on records
intended for relational satellite databases (the PubSeqOS produces the ASN.1 by converting
the data extracted from relational tables). This contrasts with the Blob satellite databases, from
The NCBI Handbook

which ASN.1 is retrieved as-is. Blob satellite databases, different from relational databases,
contain ASN.1 objects as unnormalized data objects.

Recently, annotation-only satellite databases have been added to the ID system. These satellites
contain annotation to be added to Bioseqs, linked by GI number. Because there are multiple
such annotation satellite databases, more than one set of additional annotation may be added
to a Bioseq.

The SnpAnnot database contains feature information that is limited to simple mutation
information from dbSNP (Chapter 5). The CDD Annotation database contains feature
information that is limited to protein domains for the protein sequences known to ID. In both
cases, these features might be added to NCBI-curated records by the PubSeqOS when the
records are requested.

To visualize the role of replication, the rectangle in the middle of Figure 3 represents the use
of the Sybase Replication Server to copy information from the loading side of the system to
The NCBI Handbook

the query side.

Similar to IDProdOS, PubSeqOS is a open server (also called “middleware”) that sits between
the clients and the database system. It hides details of the underlying complexity from the client
API. It actually has an almost identical code base as IDProdOS because they both serve similar
functions. When a record is requested in a format other than ASN.1, psansconvert is called to

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

do the conversion. This distinct child process allows both insulation from any possible
instability and allows for use of multiple central processing units (CPUs) in a natural way.

Note: The child process is a technical term used to describe a process that is owned by and
completely dependent on a parent process that initiated it.

At the query side are all records in Entrez, plus graveyards and EntrezControl, a special
database that is not queried by the public. EntrezControl is used to control the indexing of blobs
for Entrez. Its rows are initiated by a trigger that fires when rows are added by replication to
the IdMan database. A trigger is a special, database-stored procedure that responds to changes
in a database table.

The graveyards are databases that contain blobs that were replaced or taken over and therefore
no longer indexed in Entrez. Once replaced or taken over, blobs do not change—which is the
reason why they are limited to the query side—but they are still retrievable by GI or other
The NCBI Handbook

sequence identifier.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1. Sources of sequence data available at NCBI.

The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

Page 10

Data Flow and Processing

Figure 2. Products of the ID system.
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 3. The ID system architecture.

The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1. Products of the ID system

Type Source ASN.1 GBFF a Qscore GenPept Protein FASTA

Cumulative GenBank X X X X

Incremental GenBank X X X X
b
Incremental GenBank X X

Cumulative RefSeq X X X X

Incremental RefSeq X X X X
a GBFF, GenBank flatfile; Qscore, sequencing quality score; GenPept, GenBank Gene Products.
b NCBI records only.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

The NCBI Handbook

Genome Assembly and Annotation Process

[Chapter 14]

Paul Kitts

Summary
Box 1
Annotation of other genomes
The NCBI Handbook

NCBI may assemble a genome prior to annotation, add annotations to a genome assembled
elsewhere, or simply process an annotated genome to produce RefSeqs and maps for display in
Map Viewer (Chapter 20).
The basic procedures used to annotate other eukaryotic genomes are essentially the same as those
used to annotate the human genome. However, the overall process is adjusted to accommodate
the different types of input data that are available for each organism. Genes can be annotated on
any genome for which a significant number of mRNA, EST, or protein sequences are available.
Other features, such as clones, STS markers, and SNPs, can also be annotated whenever the
relevant data are available for an organism.
For example, genes and other features are placed on the mouse Whole Genome Shotgun (WGS)
assembly from the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium (MGSC) by skipping the assembly
steps used in the human process but following the annotation steps with relatively minor
adjustments. A variation of the human process is also used to assemble and annotate genomic
The NCBI Handbook

contigs from finished mouse clone sequences (see the Map Viewer display of the mouse genome).

The primary data produced by genome sequencing projects are often highly fragmented and sparsely
annotated. This is especially true for the Human Genome Project as a result of its policy of releasing
sequence data to the public sequence databases every day (1, 2). So that individual researchers do
not have to piece together extended segments of a genome and then relate the sequence to genetic
maps and known genes, NCBI provides annotated assemblies of public genome sequence data. NCBI
assimilates data of various types, from numerous sources, to provide an integrated view of a genome,
making it easier for researchers to spot informative relationships that might not have been apparent
from looking at the primary data. The annotated genomes can be explored using Map Viewer (Chapter
20) to display different types of data side-by-side and to follow links between related pieces of data.
This chapter describes the series of steps, the “pipeline”, that produces NCBI's annotated genome
assembly from data deposited in the public sequence databases. A variant of the annotation process
developed for the human genome is used to annotate the mouse genome, and similar procedures will
be applied to other genomes (Box 1).
The NCBI Handbook

NCBI constantly strives to improve the accuracy of its human genome assembly and annotation, to
make the data displays more informative, and to enhance the utility of our access tools. Each run
through the assembly and annotation procedure, together with feedback from outside groups and
individual users, is used to improve the process, refine the parameters for individual steps, and add
new features. Consequently, the details of the assembly and annotation process change from one run
to the next. This chapter, therefore, describes the overall human genome assembly and annotation
process and provides short descriptions of the key steps, but it does not detail specific procedures or
parameters. However, sufficient detail is provided to enable users of our assembly and annotations
to become familiar with the complexities and possible limitations of the data we provide.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Overview of the Genome Assembly and Annotation Process

Figure 1 shows how the main steps in the human genome assembly and annotation process are
organized and also shows the most significant interdependencies between the steps. The
pipeline is not linear, because whenever possible, steps are performed in parallel to reduce the
overall time taken to produce an annotated assembly from a new set of data. Some of the steps
are run incrementally on a timetable that is independent from that of the main pipeline to
produce a new assembly more quickly.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The human genome assembly and annotation process

Data Freeze
New sequence data that could be used to improve the genome assembly and annotation become
available on a daily basis. Since the assembly and annotation process takes several weeks to
complete, the data are “frozen” at the start of the build process by making a copy of all of the
data available for use at that time. Freezing the data provides a stable set of inputs for the
remainder of the build process. Additional or revised data that become available during the
The NCBI Handbook

period taken to complete the process are not used until the next build.

The Build Cycle

A build begins with a freeze of the input data and ends with the public release of an annotated
assembly of genomic sequences (Figure 1). There are usually a few months between builds so
that the latest build can be evaluated and improvements can be made.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Steps Run Incrementally

The early steps of the genome assembly and annotation pipeline involve many computationally
intensive processes, including masking the repetitive sequences and aligning each genomic
sequence to the other genomic sequences, mRNAs, and Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs).
Running these steps incrementally minimizes the time between starting a new build and being
ready to start the assembly and annotation steps. Approximately once a week, independent
from the build cycle, new or updated sequences that have been deposited in GenBank are
retrieved for processing. Periodically, old versions of the sequences are purged from the set of
accumulated data files.

The manual refinement of the set of assembled genomic contigs produced entirely from
finished sequence is another time-consuming step that is carried out incrementally,
approximately once a week.

Steps Run Irregularly

The NCBI Handbook

Because some data change infrequently, some relatively quick steps are executed on time
frames that are not tied to the build cycle. For example, the list of special cases used to override
the automatic process is updated whenever the need becomes apparent.

The Input Data

The main inputs for the genome assembly and annotation process are genomic sequences,
transcript sequences, and Sequence Tagged Site (STS) maps.

Human Genomic Sequences

Genomic Sequences Used for Assembly
Genomic sequences from the following five data sets are processed for use in the assembly:

High-Throughput Genomic Sequences. Human high-throughput genomic sequences

The NCBI Handbook

(HTGSs) are retrieved using the Entrez query system (Chapter 15). The query used returns
sequences for all entries that contain the HTG keyword, regardless of whether the sequence is
finished or is in any of the unfinished draft phases.

Finished Chromosome Sequences. The center that coordinates the sequencing of a finished
chromosome submits a specification regarding how to build the sequence of that chromosome
from its component clone sequences to a data repository at the European Bioinformatics
Institute (EBI). The sequences specified for any finished chromosomes are retrieved from
GenBank and included in the set of genomic sequences to be processed for an assembly.

Genomic Sequences from the Tiling Paths of Individual Chromosomes. The human
genome sequencing centers use a variety of experimental evidence to compile an ordered list
of clones they believe provides the best coverage for each chromosome. At least once every 2
months, the sequencing centers submit an updated minimal tiling path for each chromosome
to a data repository at the EBI. These tiling path files (TPFs) include Accession numbers if
sequence for a clone is available. The tiling path repository is checked each day for the
The NCBI Handbook

Accession numbers from any tiling path that has been updated. Any secondary Accession
numbers are replaced with the corresponding primary Accession numbers, and any invalid
Accession numbers are flagged to prevent those sequences from being used for assembly. The
latest version of the sequence for each Accession number in the most recent clone tiling paths
is retrieved from GenBank and included in the set of genomic sequences to be processed for
assembly.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Assembled Blocks of Contiguous Finished Genomic Sequence. As the sequences for

individual clones are finished, they are merged with overlapping finished sequences to form
contigs (3). The primary source for identifying neighboring clones is the clone tiling path for
each chromosome. Additional information is obtained from some GenBank entries that contain
annotation specifying the neighboring clones. BLAST (4) is used to align the sequences of
candidate pairs of clones, and a merged sequence is produced automatically if the expected
overlap is confirmed by the sequence alignment. When the automatic processes do not find an
expected overlap, there is a manual review to find the correct overlap, refining the clone order
if necessary. The most recent set of finished contigs are processed for assembly.

Additional Genomic Sequences. A few other specific human genomic sequences are added
to the assembly set because they contain genes that may not be represented in the genomic
sequences from the other sources.

Genomic Sequences Used for Ordering and Orienting

The NCBI Handbook

Sequences known to come from both ends of the same cloned genomic fragment provide
valuable linking information that helps to order and orient sequence contigs in the assembly
step (5, 6). The SNP Consortium sequenced the ends of the inserts in several million plasmid
clones containing small (0.8–6 Kbp) fragments of human genomic DNA. In many cases, both
ends of the same insert were sequenced (Table 4 in Ref. 7), thereby providing a set of plasmid
paired-end sequences.

Genomic Sequences Used for Annotation

Curated Genomic Regions. The Reference Sequence project (Chapter 18; Refs. 8, 9) provides
reviewed annotated sequences for a number of genomic regions that are difficult to annotate
correctly by automated processes (e.g., immunoglobulin gene regions). These Reference
Sequences (RefSeqs) are aligned to the assembled genome so that the curated annotation can
be transferred to the assembled genomic sequence. RefSeqs for known pseudogenes are also
aligned, not only to enable transfer of the correct annotation but, more importantly, to prevent
The NCBI Handbook

prediction of erroneous model transcripts and proteins.

BAC End Sequences. Sequences from the ends of human genomic inserts in Bacterial
Artificial Chromosome (BAC) clones are used to help map the location of specific clones onto
the assembled genome sequence. The BAC end sequences are obtained from dbGSS (see
Chapter 1). The clone names are extracted and converted to a standardized format to facilitate
linking of the BAC end sequences with mapping data and additional sequences for the same
clone, when these are available.

Genomic Sequences Used for Alignment

Human genomic sequences that are not used for either assembly or annotation are processed
so that their relationships to the assembled genome can be displayed in Map Viewer (Chapter
20). Most genomic sequences deposited in GenBank by individual scientists will not be HTG
and therefore will not be used for assembly; however, they are used for alignment. The
exceptions are a few non-HTG sequences that are used for assembly, because they are included
The NCBI Handbook

in the clone tiling path of an individual chromosome or in an assembled block of finished

sequence. Any sequences intended for assembly but not used, either because they are redundant
or are rejected by one of the quality screens in the assembly process, are also used for alignment.

Human Transcript Sequences

Human transcript sequences are used to help order and orient genomic fragments in the
assembly step, for feature annotation and also to produce maps that show the locations of the

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

transcripts on the assembled genome. Transcripts used include: (a) human mRNA RefSeqs
(8, 9), except model transcripts produced from previous rounds of genome annotation; (b)
human mRNA sequences deposited in GenBank by individual scientists, except those mRNAs
produced after a translocation or other rearrangement of the genome; and (c) a nonredundant
set of EST sequences from the BLAST FTP site. Additional information relating to these EST
sequences is obtained from UniGene (Chapter 21).

Transcripts from Other Organisms

Transcripts from other organisms may be aligned to the genome being processed. These data
may reveal the location of potential genes not identified by other means. RefSeq mRNAs,
GenBank mRNAs, and ESTs, obtained from the same sources that provide the human
transcripts, are used. Their alignments are processed for display in Map Viewer but are not
used in the assembly step or for feature annotation.
The NCBI Handbook

Sequence Tagged Site (STS) Maps

Genetic linkage maps, radiation hybrid (RH) maps, and a YAC map are used to help avoid
assembling genomic contigs incorrectly and to help place the contigs along the chromosomes.
The positions of STS markers on various maps (Table 1) are transformed into a common format
that allows us to compare the maps to each other during the assembly process. Additional maps
are processed so that they can be displayed in Map Viewer.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
STS maps used for assembly or display
Map type Map Contig assembly Contig placement Display

Genetic linkage Genethon (20) X X X

Genetic linkage Marshfield (21) X X X

Genetic linkage Decode (22) X

Radiation hybrid GeneMap99-G3 (23, 24) X X X

Radiation hybrid GeneMap99-GB4 (23, 24) X X X

Radiation hybrid NCBI RH (25) X

Radiation hybrid Stanford G3 X X X

Radiation hybrid Stanford TNG (26) X X

The NCBI Handbook

Radiation hybrid Whitehead-RH X X X

YAC Whitehead-YAC X X X
The maps listed in Table 1 are static and are not updated with additional markers. Any new
STS maps are added to our data set soon after they are released.

Special Cases
Our own review of previous genome assemblies or feedback from users sometimes identify
particular cases in which bad data or overlooked data prevent the automated processes from
producing the best possible assembly of a particular segment of the genome. To help guide the
assembly process, a list of such special cases is maintained. The list is used to provide
supplemental data that override the automatic processes that assign a particular input genomic
sequence to a chromosome or determine whether it is used for assembly.

Preparation of the Input Sequences

The NCBI Handbook

The raw input genomic sequences are screened for contaminants, the repetitive sequences are
masked, and the draft genomic sequences are split into fragments in preparation for alignment
to other sequences. The input transcript sequences are also screened for contaminants before
they are aligned to the genomic sequences. The STS content of the input genomic sequences
is determined.

Preparation of Genomic Sequences

Removing Contaminants
Draft-quality HTGSs sometimes contain segments of sequence derived from foreign sources,
most commonly the cloning vector or bacterial host. Finished sequences are usually, but not
always, free of such contaminants. Common contaminants introduce artificial blocks of
homologous sequence that can give rise to misleading alignments between two unrelated
genomic sequences. MegaBLAST (10) is used to compare the raw genomic sequences to a
database of contaminant sequences (including the UniVec database of vector sequences, the
Escherichia coli genome, bacterial insertion sequences, and bacteriophage). Any foreign
The NCBI Handbook

segments are removed from draft-quality sequence or masked in finished sequence to prevent
them from participating in alignments.

Masking of Repetitive Sequences

Sequences that occur in many copies in the genome will align to many different clones. Such
repetitive sequences include interspersed repeats (SINEs, LINEs, LTR elements, and DNA
transposons), satellite sequences, and low-complexity sequences (7, 11, 12). Matches between

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

repetitive sequences on unrelated clones make it difficult to identify alignments that indicate
a genuine overlap between clones. To eliminate the confounding matches that are based only
on repetitive sequences, the genomic sequences are run through RepeatMasker to identify
known repeats. Repeats are masked by converting the sequence to lowercase letters so that
they do not initiate alignments.

Fragmentation of Draft Sequences

Draft HTGSs consist of a set of sequence contigs derived from a particular clone artificially
linked together to form a single sequence. The masked, draft genomic sequences are split at
the gaps between their constituent contigs to create separate sequence fragments that can be
aligned independently. Vector sequences and other contaminants are also removed at this stage
by trimming or further splitting the sequence fragments.

Determination of STS Content

The NCBI Handbook

Any STS markers contained within the input genomic sequences are identified by e-PCR
(13) using the UniSTS database. The resulting data are used primarily to relate the genomic
sequences to independently derived STS maps (genetic, radiation hybrid) but are also used to
identify some foreign sequences.

Filtering
Sequences from other clones being sequenced at the same institution can occasionally cross-
contaminate draft HTGSs. The contaminating sequences may come from another clone from
the same organism or from another organism. The raw genomic sequences are screened in
several ways to detect cross-contamination: (a) they are compared with the genome sequences
from completely sequenced organisms using MegaBLAST (10); (b) they are screened for the
presence of organism-specific interspersed repeats using RepeatMasker; and (3) they are
screened for the presence of mapped STS markers from other organisms using e-PCR (13).
Any input sequence that contains foreign sequences, repeats, or markers is flagged for removal
from the data set used for assembly. Draft sequences longer than the maximum insert length
The NCBI Handbook

expected for a genomic clone are also rejected because it is likely they are contaminated with
sequences from at least one other clone.

At this stage, draft sequences composed of fragments that are too small to contribute
significantly to the assembly or that are tagged with the HTGS_CANCELLED keyword are
also flagged for removal. Another filter rejects sequences annotated as being from another
organism or as being RNA, erroneously included in the input sequences.

Chromosome Assignment
To improve assembly of the genomic sequences, the input genomic sequences are assigned to
a specific chromosome before attempting to merge the sequences. Genomic sequences that
appear on any of the chromosome tiling paths are automatically assigned to the designated
chromosome. Other genomic sequences are assigned to a chromosome based on: (a) annotation
on the submitted GenBank record; (b) the presence of multiple STS markers that have been
mapped to the same chromosome; (c) fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) mapping (14,
The NCBI Handbook

15); or (d) personal communication from a scientist with specialized knowledge. If there is no
assignment, or the assignments are conflicted, the sequences are treated as unassigned and
assembled without constraint by chromosome.

Filtering of Transcript Sequences

Transcript sequences that contain sequences derived from vectors or other common
contaminants can produce artificial alignments to the assembled genomic sequence. The input

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

transcript sequences are therefore compared with a database of contaminants using

MegaBLAST (10), as described for genomic sequences. Any transcripts with significant
matches to the sequence of a contaminant are excluded from the set of transcript sequences
used for genome assembly or annotation.

mRNA sequences shorter than 300 bases are excluded from the set of sequences that are aligned
to the genomic sequences because they are too small to contribute significantly to genome
assembly or annotation. Also excluded are any mRNA sequences flagged because they do not
represent the true sequence of a transcript, e.g., those that are chimeric or contain genomic
sequences.

Alignment of Sequences to the Input Genomic Sequences

Alignment of the input genomic sequences to each other and to various other sequences is
essential for both genome assembly and genome annotation. All relevant sequences are initially
The NCBI Handbook

aligned to the unassembled genomic sequences because this means that the computationally
intensive alignment processes can be run incrementally at an early stage in the pipeline. If
necessary, these alignments are remapped to the sequence of the assembled genome at a later
stage by a process that requires relatively little computation.

Alignment of Genomic Sequences to Each Other

Assembly of the genomic sequences from individual clones into longer contiguous sequences
(contigs) requires knowledge of which sequences overlap. The overlaps between genomic
sequences are evaluated by aligning the sequences from individual genomic clones to each
other. After masking of repeats, decontamination and fragmentation, each fragment of genomic
sequence is aligned pairwise to all of the other fragments using MegaBLAST (10). Alignments
that are sufficiently long and of sufficiently high percentage identity are saved for consideration
in the assembly step.

Alignment of Clone End Sequences to the Genomic Sequences

The NCBI Handbook

The pairs of short genomic sequences derived from the ends of plasmid clones help to order
and orient sequence fragments in the assembly step. These clone end sequences are aligned to
the processed genomic sequences, as described for Alignment of Genomic Sequences to Each
Other.

Alignment of Transcripts to the Genomic Sequences

Annotation of genes requires knowledge of where the sequences for known transcripts align
to the assembled genomic sequences. RefSeq RNA sequences, mRNA sequences from
GenBank, and EST sequences from dbEST are aligned to the processed genomic sequences,
as described for Alignment of Genomic Sequences to Each Other. Later, the alignments are
remapped to the assembled genomic sequence.

Alignment of Curated Genomic Regions to the Genomic Sequences

Curated genomic regions provide accurate annotation for regions of the genome that are
The NCBI Handbook

difficult to annotate correctly by automated processes. Sequences from curated genomic

regions are initially aligned to the unassembled genomic sequences and later remapped to the
sequence of the assembled genome, as described for Alignment of Transcripts to the Genomic
Sequences.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

Alignment of Translated Genomic Sequences to Proteins

Homologies between the polypeptides encoded by the genomic sequences and known proteins/
conserved protein domains provide hints for the gene prediction process. The repeat-masked
genomic sequences are compared with a non-redundant database of vertebrate proteins and to
the NCBI Conserved Domain Database (CDD; Ref. 16) using different versions of BLAST
(4) (BLASTX and RPS-BLAST, respectively). Significant alignments are saved for use in the
gene prediction step.

Genome Assembly
The input genomic sequences are assembled into a series of genomic sequence contigs. These
are then ordered, oriented with respect to each other, and placed along each chromosome with
appropriately sized gaps inserted between adjacent contigs. The resulting genome assembly
thus consists of a set of genomic sequence contigs and a specification for how to arrange the
sequence contigs along each chromosome.
The NCBI Handbook

Finished Chromosomes
A chromosome sequence is considered finished when any gaps that remain cannot be closed
using current cloning and sequencing technology. In practice, therefore, the sequence for a
finished chromosome usually consists of a small number of genomic sequence contigs. These
are assembled from their component clone sequences according to the specification provided
by the center responsible for sequencing that chromosome. This specification also prescribes
the order, orientation, and estimated sizes for the gaps between contigs.

Unfinished Chromosomes
Genomic sequence contigs for unfinished chromosomes are assembled and laid out based
largely on the clone tiling path. However, the tiling paths do not specify the orientation of the
clone sequences or how they should be joined; therefore, data on the alignment of the input
genomic sequences to each other and to other sequences are also used to guide the assembly.
The NCBI Handbook

Genomic sequences that augment the initial set of genomic contigs based on the tiling path
clones are also incorporated.

Resolution of Conflicts in the Chromosome Tiling Paths

Before the tiling paths are used in the genome assembly, the order of the finished clone
sequences included in the tiling paths is compared with the specifications used to assemble the
curated contigs of finished sequence. Discrepancies are resolved before proceeding with the
assembly. Sequence from any clone should appear at just one place in the assembled genome;
therefore, if a clone is listed more than once in the tiling paths, only the location with the best
evidence is used in the assembly step.

Genomic Sequences Excluded from the Assembly Step

Clone sequences that consist only of unassembled reads (HTGS_PHASE0) or that were flagged
because of suspected cross-contamination or other problem detected in the pre-assembly
screens are not used in the assembly step.
The NCBI Handbook

Assembly of the Genomic Sequence Contigs

Adjacent, finished clone sequences from the chromosome tiling path that have good sequence
overlap are merged. Tiling path draft sequences that are adjacent to and overlap the finished
clone sequences or other draft clone sequences are added to extend the initial genomic sequence
contigs. After that, genomic sequences from clones not on any chromosome tiling path are
added, provided they have good overlaps with the assembled tiling path clones. Genomic

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

sequences from additional clones may be added if they provide the sequence for a known gene
that is missing from the existing genomic sequence contigs. Finally, the individual fragments
of draft sequences are ordered and oriented.

Assembly of Finished Sequences from Tiling Path Clones. The quality of any overlaps
between finished clone sequences that are adjacent in the clone tiling path are assessed using
the alignments between pairs of genomic sequences that were produced in advance. Sequences
that have high-quality overlaps, or that are known from annotation or other data to abut, are
merged to form a genomic sequence contig. Clone sequences that have no good overlaps are
retained as separate contigs.

Addition of Draft Sequences from Tiling Path Clones. The procedure used for merging draft
sequence from tiling path clones is similar to that described for merging finished sequences,
except that the minimum-overlap quality required for merging is different. An overlap
involving a draft sequence can contain more mismatches, but must be longer, than an overlap
The NCBI Handbook

between two finished sequences. Preference is given to finished sequences so that a contig
made by merging finished and draft sequences will contain the finished sequence for the
overlapping portion. Draft clone sequences that have no good overlaps are retained as separate
contigs.

Addition of Sequences from Other Genomic Clones. Genomic sequences from clones that
are not on any chromosome tiling path are used to close, or extend into, gaps in the backbone
of genomic contigs assembled based on the tiling paths. Genomic sequences that are fully
contained within the existing genomic contigs are not used. Any remaining genomic sequences
that were either assigned to the relevant chromosome or could not be assigned to any
chromosome are evaluated, and sequences that have good-quality overlaps with genomic
contigs are merged in to extend a contig or to join two adjacent contigs, if two additional
conditions are met: (1) the gap must be sufficiently large to accommodate the additional
sequence; and (2) the Sequence Tagged Site (STS) marker content of the additional clone
sequence must be compatible with that of the flanking clone sequences when compared with
The NCBI Handbook

various STS maps.

After all of the chromosomes have been assembled, any remaining genomic clone sequence
that contains a known gene not present in the other contigs is added to the assembly as a separate
contig.

Ordering and Orienting Draft Sequence Fragments. The order and orientation of the
fragments of HTGS_PHASE1 draft sequence need to be defined before sequence made from
contigs that include this category of draft sequence can be completed. Some fragments may be
ordered and oriented by overlaps with sequences from adjacent clones. Many more can be
defined by aligning them with mRNAs, ESTs, or plasmid paired-end sequences. Any fragments
whose order and orientation remain undefined are placed in the nearest open gap and given an
arbitrary orientation. Fragments of draft sequence are connected to flanking sequences and to
each other by runs of 100 unknown bases (Ns), which represent an arbitrarily sized gap in the
sequence.
The NCBI Handbook

Placement of the Genomic Contigs

After the genomic sequence contigs are assembled, they are oriented and placed in order along
each chromosome with appropriately sized gaps inserted between adjacent contigs. The
chromosome tiling paths specify the order of the clone sequences and the sizes for some gaps.
Therefore, the order and orientation of most of the genomic sequence contigs are derived from
the tiling paths. Many of the remaining contigs are placed by comparison of the STS marker
content of the contigs, as determined by e-PCR (13) using the UniSTS database, to various

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

STS maps. There are some contigs that can be assigned to a specific chromosome but cannot
be placed along that chromosome. Others cannot even be assigned to a specific chromosome
and therefore remain unplaced within the genome assembly.

Gaps between the clone contigs laid out in the chromosome tiling paths are arbitrarily set at
50 Kbp, and 3 Mbp for the centromere, unless another gap size is specified in the tiling path.
Any remaining gaps between genomic sequence contigs are arbitrarily set to 10 Kbp.

Preparing a Provisional Genome Assembly

A set of sequences and data files is produced to represent the provisional assembly. This set
includes: (a) sequences for each genomic contig in FASTA format; (b) specifications
describing how to assemble each genomic contig from its components; and (c) a specification
for how to arrange the contigs along each chromosome. A raw RefSeq entry is also made for
each genomic sequence contig.
The NCBI Handbook

Quality Control
The provisional assembly is checked for consistency with the chromosome tiling paths and
various STS maps. The order in which the component clone sequences appear in the assembled
chromosomes is compared with their order in the tiling paths on which the assembly was based.
The STS marker order along each chromosome in the provisional assembly, as determined by
e-PCR (13) using the UniSTS database, is checked for consistency with a set of STS maps.
Haussler et al. at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) also perform a set of
independent quality checks on the provisional assembly. In addition to comparing the assembly
to the chromosome tiling paths and to various STS maps, they also look for potentially
misassembled contigs using alignments of BAC end sequences. Any serious errors in the
assembly may be corrected by repeating the assembly steps using different parameters or by
manually editing the assembly.

Annotation of Genes
The NCBI Handbook

Identification of genes within the genome assembly reveals the functional significance of
particular stretches of genomic sequence. Genes are found using three complementary
approaches: (a) known genes are placed primarily by aligning mRNAs to the assembled
genomic contigs; (b) additional genes are located based on alignment of ESTs to the assembled
genomic contigs; and (c) previously unknown genes are predicted using hints provided by
protein homologies. Whenever possible, predicted genes are identified by homology between
the protein they encode and known protein sequences.

Generation of Transcript-based Gene Models

Alignments between known transcripts and the assembled genomic sequences are processed
to produce gene models. Each gene model consists of an ordered series of exons. The transcripts
defining each gene model are used as evidence to support that model.

Alignment of Transcripts to the Assembled Genome

The NCBI Handbook

The alignments between RefSeq RNA sequences, mRNA and EST sequences from GenBank
and the component genomic sequences are remapped to produce alignments of these transcripts
to the assembled genomic contigs.

Production of Candidate Gene Models

A candidate gene model is produced from each set of alignments between a particular transcript
and one strand of a particular genomic contig as follows: (1) putative exons are identified by

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

looking for mRNA splice sites near the ends of those alignments that satisfy minimum length
and percentage identity criteria; (2) a mutually compatible set of exons for the model is selected
by applying rules, such as restrictions on the size of an intron, that define plausible exon–intron
structures; and (3) BLAST (4) may be used to produce additional alignments to try to identify
exons that were missed because they were too short to be represented in the initial set of
transcript alignments. Candidate gene models are only retained if good-quality alignments
between their exons and the defining transcript cover either more than half the length of the
transcript or more than 1 Kbp.

Selection of the Best RefSeq RNA-based Gene Models

Each RefSeq RNA represents a distinct transcript produced from a particular gene (Chapter
18; Refs. 8, 9). Hence, there should not be more than one gene model corresponding to any
given RefSeq RNA. Therefore, all gene models based on a particular RefSeq RNA are
compared, and the best one is selected. Because the RefSeq RNA is taken to be the best
The NCBI Handbook

representation of a particular transcript, this gene model is preserved without any further
modification. Any extra models may represent paralogs; therefore, they are included with the
mRNA- and EST-based models for further processing. Between builds, RefSeq RNAs are
refined based on a review of related gene models and transcript alignments produced during
the genome annotation process.

Exon Refinement
Many gene models may be produced for the same gene because the input data set frequently
contains multiple EST or mRNA sequences representing the same transcript. This redundancy
is used to refine the splice sites defining a particular exon. Similar exons are clustered, and
splice sites may be adjusted in some models to match those used by the majority of models
containing the same exon. Inconsistent models may be discarded at this stage, unless they have
sufficient support to be retained as likely splice variants.

Chaining of Transcript-based Gene Models

The NCBI Handbook

Many of the mRNAs and most of the ESTs used to generate the initial gene models provide
sequence for only part of the native transcript. Overlapping gene models that are compatible
with each other are combined into an extended model. This chaining step produces models
more likely to represent the full gene.

Ab Initio Gene Prediction

GenomeScan, an ab initio gene prediction program, is used to provide models for genes inferred
from the genomic sequence using hints provided by protein homologies (17). The genes
predicted by GenomeScan are combined with the transcript-based gene models, but they are
also retained as a distinct set of models that can be viewed or searched separately.

Dividing the Genomic Sequences into Segments

GenomeScan produces better results when long genomic sequences are broken into shorter
segments at putative gene boundaries. The locations of gene models based on RefSeq RNA
The NCBI Handbook

alignments are, therefore, used to divide the assembled genomic contigs into segments.
Repetitive sequences are masked by remapping the repeats found in the component genomic
sequences.

Producing Protein Hints for GenomeScan

GenomeScan can use data on protein homologies to improve its gene predictions (17). The
locations of genomic sequences that potentially code for polypeptides with homology to other

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

proteins are obtained from three sources. Significant alignments between translated genomic
segments and vertebrate proteins are obtained by filtering and remapping the precomputed
alignments. Significant alignments between translated genomic sequences and conserved
protein domains are obtained in the same manner. A third set of alignments comes from running
GenomeScan without any hints. The proteins predicted by this initial run are aligned to proteins
from SWISS-PROT (18) and NCBI RefSeq proteins (8, 9) using blastp (4). The eukaryotic
protein with the best match is then aligned to the genomic sequence segments using tblastn
(4). These three sets of data are converted into the format required by GenomeScan and merged
to produce a single set of protein hints.

Predicting Genes Using GenomeScan

Each segment of genomic sequence is processed by GenomeScan using the combined set of
protein homology-based hints as an additional input. This produces one model containing all
of the predicted exons for each putative gene. Models with coding sequences shorter than 90
The NCBI Handbook

amino acids are discarded. Each remaining model is aligned to proteins from SWISS-PROT
and NCBI RefSeq proteins using blastp. The eukaryotic protein with the best match to any
model is used as evidence for that model and to provide a clue as to the possible function of
that model.

Consolidation of Gene Models

Consolidation of the transcript-based gene models and the predicted gene models forms a single
set of models. Models are clustered into genes if they share one or more exons or if Entrez
Gene (Chapter 19; Refs. 8, 9) indicates that the transcripts used as evidence for the models
come from the same gene. If a model is entirely contained within a longer model, it is redundant
and, therefore, eliminated. Sets of identical models are reduced to a single representative model
linked to all of the supporting evidence. For sets of very similar models, a single model is
picked as a representative, giving preference to models based on RefSeq RNAs or on GenBank
mRNAs. Predicted gene models that significantly overlap transcript-based models but that are
not sufficiently similar to consolidate are discarded.
The NCBI Handbook

Pruning of Gene Models

Some gene models are discarded because: superior gene annotation is available from a curated
genomic region, they are likely to represent pseudogenes, or they are incompatible with other
gene models.

Gene Models Superceded by Curated Genomic Regions

The manually reviewed annotations from curated genomic region RefSeqs are used in
preference to any corresponding gene models generated by automated processing. The curated
genomic regions are aligned to the assembled genomic contigs by remapping the alignments
between these RefSeqs and the component genomic sequences. Any gene model that
significantly overlaps a segment of the assembled sequence that corresponds to a curated
genomic region is discarded.

Gene Models Likely to Be Pseudogenes

The NCBI Handbook

When transcripts from a particular gene are aligned to the genomic sequences, they will align
not only to the active copy of the gene but also to any segment of the genome containing a
pseudogene derived from the active gene. Because model transcripts or model proteins that
represent nontranscribed pseudogenes are undesirable, an attempt is made to identify and
remove such models.

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

Whenever possible, alignments of RefSeqs for pseudogenes, either curated genomic regions
or RNAs, are used to annotate pseudogenes. Some additional models derived from pseudogenes
that are not yet represented by RefSeqs are eliminated by the following mechanism. All models
based on the same supporting mRNA are compared with respect to the percent identity of the
alignments and the number of exons. Only the model with the strongest evidence is retained.

Conflicting Gene Models

When two gene models are found to have an extensive overlap, then in general only the model
with the stronger evidence is retained. However, models based on RefSeqs are always retained.
Whereas any model not based on a RefSeq is discarded if it overlaps a model that is RefSeq
based, two RefSeq-based models that overlap are both retained.

Location of Model Coding Regions

Initially, the longest open reading frame from each gene model is annotated as the protein
The NCBI Handbook

coding sequence. This annotation can be revised if evidence associated with that model
provides support for an alternative coding region. The protein coding sequence from any
transcript used as evidence for a gene model is compared with the longest open reading frame
in that model using BLAST (4). If the two do not match, the conflict is noted, and the annotation
is revised if there is evidence to support an alternative coding region. For example, the coding
sequence from the transcript evidence may indicate that an alternate translation start site is
used, or that the model contains a premature termination codon. Models with coding regions
less than 90 amino acids long are discarded, unless they are based on a RefSeq.

Relating Gene Models to Known Genes, Transcripts, and Proteins

The set of gene models produced by the preceding steps is a mixture of models for predicted
genes and for known genes. To help identify models representing known genes, the model
transcripts are compared with known transcripts. To help name the predicted genes, the proteins
encoded by the models are also compared with known proteins.
The NCBI Handbook

Relating the Model Transcripts to Known Transcripts

To provide continuity from build to build and to identify genes based on their predicted
transcripts, MegaBLAST (10) is used to compare model RNAs to: (a) RefSeq RNAs; (b)
mRNAs from GenBank; and (c) model RNAs from the previous build. These comparisons are
reported as reciprocal best hits if: (a) they produce a significant hit; (b) no other model has a
better hit to that particular RNA; and (c) no other RNA has a better hit to that particular model.

Relating the Model Proteins to Known Proteins

The eukaryotic proteins with the best match to each protein predicted by the annotation process
are used to identify the best model for a possible gene and to assign a name to gene models
that are novel. The proteins encoded by the models are aligned to proteins from SWISS-PROT
(18), NCBI RefSeq proteins (8, 9), and the NCBI non-redundant protein database using blastp
(4). The name of the eukaryotic protein with the best match, its sequence identifier, and match
score are recorded for each predicted protein with a significant hit.
The NCBI Handbook

Assigning Gene Identifiers to Models

Gene models are attributed to known genes whenever the correspondence is clear. If a model
RNA has a reciprocal best hit with a known RNA, then the annotation of the known RNA is
used to identify the gene. The first models to be assigned to genes are those that have reciprocal
best hits with RefSeq RNAs. This is followed by assignment of those models that have
reciprocal best hits to models from the previous build or to GenBank mRNAs. Gene data for

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

models that match a mRNA not yet represented by a RefSeq are obtained from NCBI gene-
specific databases (currently Entrez Gene, Chapter 19). If the mRNA is associated with an
entry in one of these databases, then the information attached to that gene record (e.g., symbols,
names, and database cross-references) is used in the annotation. If the correspondence with
known genes is ambiguous, as may occur if there are undocumented paralogs, then an interim
gene identifier is assigned.

Selection of Transcript Models to Represent Each Gene

Multiple models based on alternative transcripts for some genes may be produced. In most of
these cases, one transcript model is selected to represent the product of the gene for annotation
purposes. Any homology between eukaryotic proteins and proteins encoded by the models
guides the choice between alternative models. Multiple transcripts are annotated only if the
models are based on RefSeq mRNAs representing alternative transcripts from the same gene.

Although alternative transcript models are not annotated, the alignments between the
The NCBI Handbook

transcripts that represent alternative splicing and genomic contigs are processed for display in
Map Viewer, Evidence Viewer, and Model Maker (see Chapter 20).

Naming of Gene Products

The transcripts and protein products of any models that have been assigned to a known gene
are given the product names that appear in the LocusLink entry for that gene. The gene products
from other genes are named based on any significant homology to other eukaryotic proteins,
provided that the matching protein has a meaningful name (i.e., names such as “Hypothetical...”
are ignored).

Annotation of the Assembled Genomic Contigs

The genomic contig RefSeqs are annotated with features that provide information about the
location of genes, mRNAs, and coding regions. Features from curated genomic region RefSeqs
are copied to the contigs based on the alignment between the curated sequence and the
The NCBI Handbook

corresponding contig. Protein domains from the Conserved Domain Database (CDD; Ref.
16) are identified using reverse position-specific BLAST (RPS-BLAST; Ref. 4), and their
locations are annotated. A description of the evidence supporting those RNAs and proteins that
are not curated RefSeqs, i.e., those that are models, is also recorded.

Annotation of Other Features

Reference sequences produced by the genome assembly process are annotated with features
that provide landmarks valuable for making connections between maps based on different
coordinate systems and for associating genes with diseases.

Annotation of STSs
Placement of STSs on the genome assembly allows sequence-based data to be integrated with
non-sequence-based maps that contain STS markers, such as genetic and radiation hybrid maps.
STSs are identified by using e-PCR (13) to find sequences that match the STS primer pairs
The NCBI Handbook

from UniSTS, the spacing of which is consistent with the reported PCR product size. The
number of times that each STS appears in the assembled genome is recorded so that only those
STSs that appear at only one or two locations in the assembled genome are annotated.

Annotation of Clones
Placement on the genome assembly of clones that have been mapped to cytogenetic bands by
FISH provides the means to determine the correspondence between the sequence and

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

cytogenetic coordinate systems (14, 15). Knowing this correspondence allows the integration
of sequence-based data with cytogenetic data. For human, only those clones mapped by
fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) by the human BAC Resource Consortium (see the
Human BAC Resource) are annotated. Clones are placed using three types of sequence tags.
Clones that have sequence for the genomic insert, either draft or finished, with a GenBank
Accession number are localized by remapping the alignment between the clone sequence and
other genomic clones to the assembled genomic contigs. Similarly, clones that have BAC end
sequences are localized by remapping the alignment between the BAC end sequences and
genomic clone sequences to the assembled genomic contigs. Clones that have STS markers
confirmed by PCR or hybridization experiments are mapped using the locations in the
assembled contigs of STS markers that were identified by e-PCR. The number of places that
each clone appears in the assembled genome is recorded so that only those clones that either
have a unique placement in the assembled genome or are placed twice on the same chromosome
are annotated.
The NCBI Handbook

Annotation of Sequence Variation

Placement of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and other variations on the genome
provides numerous landmarks that are valuable for associating genes with diseases (Chapter
5). Variations from dbSNP (19) are placed in their genomic contexts using the sequences that
flank the variation. Flanking sequences are first run through RepeatMasker to mask repetitive
sequences and then aligned to the assembled genomic sequence contigs using MegaBLAST
(10). The resulting matches are classified as either high or low confidence, depending on the
quality of the alignment, and the number of matches for each SNP is recorded so that only
those SNPs that map to one or two locations in the assembled genome are annotated.

Product Data Sets

The products of our assembly and annotation process are made available to the public as
RefSeqs of assembled chromosome sequences, genomic sequence contigs, model transcripts,
and model proteins. RefSeqs are produced in alternative formats so that they can be retrieved
The NCBI Handbook

by Entrez, BLAST, or FTP.

RefSeqs
A fully annotated Refseq entry is made for each genomic sequence contig. Separate RefSeq
model RNA and protein entries are also made for any of the transcripts and coding regions
annotated on genomic contigs not identified as existing RefSeqs. Finally, a RefSeq entry is
made for each chromosome by combining the annotated sequences of the genomic contigs in
the appropriate order and with the appropriate spacing. The resulting RefSeqs can be retrieved
through Entrez.

BLAST Databases
The assembled genomic contig RefSeqs are formatted as a BLAST database (Chapter 16).
Separate BLAST databases are also produced from the set of transcripts and the set of proteins
annotated on the assembled genome. These databases include both known and model RefSeqs.
The NCBI Handbook

In addition, separate BLAST databases are produced from the complete sets of transcripts and
proteins predicted by GenomeScan.

Data Files for FTP

The annotated genomic sequence contig, model transcript, and model protein RefSeqs are
saved in GenBank flatfile and ASN.1 formats. The same sets of sequences that are used to
make BLAST databases are also saved in FASTA format. All of these data files, together with

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

files that specify the construction of the genomic contigs and their arrangement along the
chromosomes, are made available for download by FTP.

Production of Maps That Display Genome Features

We produce many maps showing the locations of various features annotated on our genome
assembly. Maps containing whatever combination of features that interests the user can be
selected and displayed side-by-side using Map Viewer (Chapter 20). Detailed descriptions of
the maps available for each genome are available in the relevant Genome Map Viewer help
document.

Preparation of Map Data

Basic map data are prepared for each map to identify each feature, delineate its position on the
chromosome, and specify how it is to be displayed. For many maps, supplemental data are
prepared to provide more information about each feature. Map Viewer displays this map-
The NCBI Handbook

specific supplemental information when users select a particular map as the Master Map
(Chapter 20).

Maps Based on Sequence Coordinates

Maps that display those features annotated on the genomic sequence contigs (genes, STSs,
clones, and SNPs) are generated by translating the positions of the features on the contigs into
chromosome coordinates. Contig coordinates are translated into chromosome coordinates
using the positions of the contigs along each chromosome, as determined in the genome
assembly step. Using this same method, alignments between various sequences and the
genomic contigs are translated into chromosome coordinates to produce additional maps that
show the locations of the aligned sequences on the chromosomes. Maps generated from
sequence alignments include maps that show the genomic positions of mRNA plus EST
sequences, or genomic sequences from GenBank. The specifications used to build each
genomic contig are also translated into chromosome coordinates to produce one map that shows
the component sequences used to assemble each contig and another that simply shows the
The NCBI Handbook

finished and draft sections of the contigs.

Maps Based on Other Coordinate Systems

Cytogenetic maps, genetic linkage maps, and radiation hybrid maps use different coordinate
systems that are not based on sequence. To generate data for these types of maps, the locations
of the map elements are listed in the coordinate system appropriate to each map. Map Viewer
can scale maps defined in different coordinate systems so that they can de displayed side by
side.

Making the Map Data Available for Use

All of the map data for the new genome assembly are loaded into the Map Viewer database.
Next, the objects in the new maps are indexed so that users can search for and then display
specific features (Chapter 20). The data from the Map Viewer database are exported to produce
a set of map data files that is made available via FTP.
The NCBI Handbook

Public Release of Assembly and Models

To ensure that a consistent view of the annotated genome assembly is presented, the release
of databases and FTP files is coordinated. When everything is ready for release, the Map Viewer
display is switched to the new build, the BLAST databases are swapped, and the files on the
FTP site are replaced. Several associated databases are then refreshed, including LocusLink,
dbSNP, and UniSTS, so that the data they contain reflect the new build. Finally, the Web pages

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook

that provide statistics for the build and record changes to the genome assembly and annotation
process are updated.

Integration with Other Resources

The products of the genome assembly and annotation process are linked extensively to various
NCBI resources. These links provide different views of the data and more information for
researchers as they follow a particular line of investigation.

Links between Map Viewer and Other Resources

The maps displayed by Map Viewer have embedded links between map objects and relevant
NCBI resources (Table 2). Many of these resources also have reciprocal links back to Map
Viewer, allowing, for example, a gene in LocusLink to be displayed in its genomic context.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2
Links from Map Viewer objects to other NCBI resources
Map object Linked NCBI resource Resource description

Accession number Entrez Chapter 15

Clone Clone Registry http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/clone/

Disease gene OMIM Chapter 7

EST or mRNA UniGene Chapter 21

Gene LocusLink Chapter 19

Gene or transcript Evidence Viewer Chapter 20

Gene or transcript Model Maker Chapter 20

Gene Human–mouse homology map http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Homology/

The NCBI Handbook

STS UniSTS http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=unists

Variation (SNP) dbSNP Chapter 5

Links between Reference Sequences and Other Resources

During the production of RefSeqs, links between the annotated features (clones, genes, SNPs,
and STSs) and the relevant resources listed in Table 2 are created. Links are also made between
the genomic contig RefSeqs and the RefSeqs for the model transcripts and proteins that they
encode.

Integration with BLAST

A customized BLAST Web page allows the comparison of any sequence to a BLAST database
of model transcript, model protein, or genomic contig RefSeqs. Users can choose to view any
hits that result from such a search on a diagram showing the chromosomal location of the hits,
with each hit linked to a Map Viewer display of the region encompassing the sequence
The NCBI Handbook

alignment.

Contributors
Richa Agarwala, Jonathan Baker, Hsiu-Chuan Chen, Vyacheslav Chetvernin, Deanna Church,
Cliff Clausen, Dmitry Dernovoy, Olga Ermolaeva, Wratko Hlavina, Wonhee Jang, Philip
Johnson, Jonathan Kans, Paul Kitts, Alex Lash, David Lipman, Donna Maglott, Jim Ostell,
Keith Oxenrider, Kim Pruitt, Sergei Resenchuk, Victor Sapojnikov, Greg Schuler, Steve
Sherry, Andrei Shkeda, Alexandre Souvorov, Tugba Suzek, Tatiana Tatusova, Lukas Wagner,
and Sarah Wheelan

References
1. Bently DR. Genomic sequence information should be released immediately and freely in the public
domain. Science 1996;274:533–534. [PubMed: 8928006]
2. Guyer M. Statement on the rapid release of genomic DNA sequence. Genome Res 1998;8:413.
The NCBI Handbook

[PubMed: 9582183]
3. Jang W, Chen HC, Sicotte H, Schuler GD. Making effective use of human genomic sequence data.
Trends Genet 1999;15:284–286. [PubMed: 10390628]
4. Altschul SF, Madden TL, Schaffer AA, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, Lipman DJ. Gapped BLAST and
PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res 1997;25:3389–
3402. [PubMed: 9254694]146917
5. Zhao S, Malek J, Mahairas G, Fu L, Nierman W, Venter JC, Adams MD. Human BAC ends quality
assessment and sequence analyses. Genomics 2000;63:321–332. [PubMed: 10704280]

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

6. Mahairas GG, Wallace JC, Smith K, Swartzell S, Holzman T, Keller A, Shaker R, Furlong J, Young
J, Zhao S, Adams MD, Hood L. Sequence-tagged connectors: a sequence approach to mapping and
scanning the human genome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1999;96:9739–9744. [PubMed: 10449764]
22280
7. Lander ES, Linton LM, Birren B, Nusbaum C, Zody MC, Baldwin J, Devon K, Dewar K, Doyle M,
FitzHugh W, Funke R, Gage D, Harris K, Heaford A, Howland J, Kann L, Lehoczky J, LeVine R,
McEwan P, McKernan K, Meldrim J, Mesirov JP, Miranda C, Morris W, Naylor J, Raymond C, Rosetti
M, Santos R, Sheridan A, Sougnez C, Stange-Thomann N, Stojanovic N, Subramanian A, Wyman D,
Rogers J, Sulston J, Ainscough R, Beck S, Bentley D, Burton J, Clee C, Carter N, Coulson A, Deadman
R, Deloukas P, Dunham A, Dunham I, Durbin R, French L, Grafham D, Gregory S, Hubbard T,
Humphray S, Hunt A, Jones M, Lloyd C, McMurray A, Matthews L, Mercer S, Milne S, Mullikin JC,
Mungall A, Plumb R, Ross M, Shownkeen R, Sims S, Waterston RH, Wilson RK, Hillier LW,
McPherson JD, Marra MA, Mardis ER, Fulton LA, Chinwalla AT, Pepin KH, Gish WR, Chissoe SL,
Wendl MC, Delehaunty KD, Miner TL, Delehaunty A, Kramer JB, Cook LL, Fulton RS, Johnson DL,
Minx PJ, Clifton SW, Hawkins T, Branscomb E, Predki P, Richardson P, Wenning S, Slezak T, Doggett
N, Cheng JF, Olsen A, Lucas S, Elkin C, Uberbacher E, Frazier M, Gibbs RA, Muzny DM, Scherer
The NCBI Handbook

SE, Bouck JB, Sodergren EJ, Worley KC, Rives CM, Gorrell JH, Metzker ML, Naylor SL,
Kucherlapati RS, Nelson DL, Weinstock GM, Sakaki Y, Fujiyama A, Hattori M, Yada T, Toyoda A,
Itoh T, Kawagoe C, Watanabe H, Totoki Y, Taylor T, Weissenbach J, Heilig R, Saurin W, Artiguenave
F, Brottier P, Bruls T, Pelletier E, Robert C, Wincker P, Smith DR, Doucette-Stamm L, Rubenfield
M, Weinstock K, Lee HM, Dubois J, Rosenthal A, Platzer M, Nyakatura G, Taudien S, Rump A, Yang
H, Yu J, Wang J, Huang G, Gu J, Hood L, Rowen L, Madan A, Qin S, Davis RW, Federspiel NA,
Abola AP, Proctor MJ, Myers RM, Schmutz J, Dickson M, Grimwood J, Cox DR, Olson MV, Kaul
R, Raymond C, Shimizu N, Kawasaki K, Minoshima S, Evans GA, Athanasiou M, Schultz R, Roe
BA, Chen F, Pan H, Ramser J, Lehrach H, Reinhardt R, McCombie WR, de la Bastide M, Dedhia N,
Blocker H, Hornischer K, Nordsiek G, Agarwala R, Aravind L, Bailey JA, Bateman A, Batzoglou S,
Birney E, Bork P, Brown DG, Burge CB, Cerutti L, Chen HC, Church D, Clamp M, Copley RR,
Doerks T, Eddy SR, Eichler EE, Furey TS, Galagan J, Gilbert JG, Harmon C, Hayashizaki Y, Haussler
D, Hermjakob H, Hokamp K, Jang W, Johnson LS, Jones TA, Kasif S, Kaspryzk A, Kennedy S, Kent
WJ, Kitts P, Koonin EV, Korf I, Kulp D, Lancet D, Lowe TM, McLysaght A, Mikkelsen T, Moran
JV, Mulder N, Pollara VJ, Ponting CP, Schuler G, Schultz J, Slater G, Smit AF, Stupka E, Szustakowski
J, Thierry-Mieg D, Thierry-Mieg J, Wagner L, Wallis J, Wheeler R, Williams A, Wolf YI, Wolfe KH,
The NCBI Handbook

Yang SP, Yeh RF, Collins F, Guyer MS, Peterson J, Felsenfeld A, Wetterstrand KA, Patrinos A,
Morgan MJ, Szustakowki J, de Jong P, Catanese JJ, Osoegawa K, Shizuya H, Choi S, Chen YJ. Initial
sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature 2001;409:860–921. [PubMed: 11237011]
8. Pruitt KD, Katz KS, Sicotte H, Maglott DR. Introducing RefSeq and LocusLink: curated human
genome resources at the NCBI. Trends Genet 2000;16:44–47. [PubMed: 10637631]
9. Pruitt KD, Maglott DR. RefSeq and LocusLink: NCBI gene-centered resources. Nucleic Acids Res
2001;29:137–140. [PubMed: 11125071]29787
10. Zhang Z, Schwartz S, Wagner L, Miller W. A GREEDY algorithm for aligning DNA sequences. J
Comput Biol 2000;7:203–214. [PubMed: 10890397]
11. Jurka J. Repeats in genomic DNA: mining and meaning. Curr Opin Struct Biol 1998;8:333–337.
[PubMed: 9666329]
12. Smit AF. Interspersed repeats and other mementos of transposable elements in mammalian genomes.
Curr Opin Genet Dev 1999;9:657–663. [PubMed: 10607616]
13. Schuler GD. Sequence mapping by electronic PCR. Genome Res 1997;7:541–550. [PubMed:
9149949]310656
14. Kirsch IR, Green ED, Yonescu R, Strausberg R, Carter N, Bentley D, Leversha MA, Dunham I,
The NCBI Handbook

Braden VV, Hilgenfeld E, Schuler G, Lash AE, Shen GL, Martelli M, Kuehl WM, Klausner RD,
Ried T. A systematic, high-resolution linkage of the cytogenetic and physical maps of the human
genome. Nat Genet 2000;24:339–340. [PubMed: 10742091]
15. Cheung VG, Nowak N, Jang W, Kirsch IR, Zhao S, Chen XN, Furey TS, Kim UJ, Kuo WL, Olivier
M, Conroy J, Kasprzyk A, Massa H, Yonescu R, Sait S, Thoreen C, Snijders A, Lemyre E, Bailey
JA, Bruzel A, Burrill WD, Clegg SM, Collins S, Dhami P, Friedman C, Han CS, Herrick S, Lee J,
Ligon AH, Lowry S, Morley M, Narasimhan S, Osoegawa K, Peng Z, Plajzer-Frick I, Quade BJ,
Scott D, Sirotkin K, Thorpe AA, Gray JW, Hudson J, Pinkel D, Ried T, Rowen L, Shen-Ong GL,

Data Flow and Processing

 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook

Strausberg RL, Birney E, Callen DF, Cheng JF, Cox DR, Doggett NA, Carter NP, Eichler EE,
Haussler D, Korenberg JR, Morton CC, Albertson D, Schuler G, de Jong PJ, Trask BJ. Integration
of cytogenetic landmarks into the draft sequence of the human genome. Nature 2001;409:953–958.
[PubMed: 11237021]
16. Marchler-Bauer A, Panchenko AR, Shoemaker BA, Thiessen PA, Geer LY, Bryant SH. CDD: a
database of conserved domain alignments with links to domain three-dimensional structure. Nucleic
Acids Res 2002;30:281–283. [PubMed: 11752315]99109
17. Yeh RF, Lim LP, Burge CB. Computational inference of homologous gene structures in the human
genome. Genome Res 2001;11:803–816. [PubMed: 11337476]311055
18. Bairoch A, Apweiler R. The SWISS-PROT protein sequence data bank and its supplement TrEMBL
in 1998. Nucleic Acids Res 1998;26:38–42. [PubMed: 9399796]147215
19. Sherry ST, Ward M, Sirotkin K. dbSNP—database for single nucleotide polymorphisms and other
classes of minor genetic variation. Genome Res 1999;9:677–679. [PubMed: 10447503]
20. Dib C, Faure S, Fizames C, Samson D, Drouot N, Vignal A, Millasseau P, Marc S, Hazan J, Seboun
E, Lathrop M, Gyapay G, Morissette J, Weissenbach J. A comprehensive genetic map of the human
The NCBI Handbook

genome based on 5,264 microsatellites. Nature 1996;380:152–154. [PubMed: 8600387]

21. Broman KW, Murray JC, Sheffield VC, White RL, Weber JL. Comprehensive human genetic maps:
individual and sex-specific variation in recombination. Am J Hum Genet 1998;63:861–869.
[PubMed: 9718341]1377399
22. Kong A, Gudbjartsson DF, Sainz J, Jonsdottir GM, Gudjonsson SA, Richardsson B, Sigurdardottir
S, Barnard J, Hallbeck B, Masson G, Shlien A, Palsson ST, Frigge ML, Thorgeirsson TE, Gulcher
JR, Stefansson K. A high-resolution recombination map of the human genome. Nat Genet
2002;31:241–247. [PubMed: 12053178]
23. Schuler GD, Boguski MS, Stewart EA, Stein LD, Gyapay G, Rice K, White RE, Rodriguez-Tome P,
Aggarwal A, Bajorek E, Bentolila S, Birren BB, Butler A, Castle AB, Chiannilkulchai N, Chu A,
Clee C, Cowles S, Day PJ, Dibling T, Drouot N, Dunham I, Duprat S, East C, Hudson TJ. A gene
map of the human genome. Science 1996;274:540–546. [PubMed: 8849440]
24. Deloukas P, Schuler GD, Gyapay G, Beasley EM, Soderlund C, Rodriguez-Tome P, Hui L, Matise
TC, McKusick KB, Beckmann JS, Bentolila S, Bihoreau M, Birren BB, Browne J, Butler A, Castle
AB, Chiannilkulchai N, Clee C, Day PJ, Dehejia A, Dibling T, Drouot N, Duprat S, Fizames C,
Bentley DR. A physical map of 30,000 human genes. Science 1998;282:744–746. [PubMed:
The NCBI Handbook

9784132]
25. Agarwala R, Applegate DL, Maglott D, Schuler GD, Schaffer AA. A fast and scalable radiation hybrid
map construction and integration strategy. Genome Res 2000;10:350–364. [PubMed: 10720576]
311427
26. Olivier M, Aggarwal A, Allen J, Almendras AA, Bajorek ES, Beasley EM, Brady SD, Bushard JM,
Bustos VI, Chu A, Chung TR, De Witte A, Denys ME, Dominguez R, Fang NY, Foster BD,
Freudenberg RW, Hadley D, Hamilton LR, Jeffrey TJ, Kelly L, Lazzeroni L, Levy MR, Lewis SC,
Liu X, Lopez FJ, Louie B, Marquis JP, Martinez RA, Matsuura MK, Misherghi NS, Norton JA,
Olshen A, Perkins SM, Perou AJ, Piercy C, Piercy M, Qin F, Reif T, Sheppard K, Shokoohi V, Smick
GA, Sun WL, Stewart EA, Fernando J, Tejeda, Tran NM, Trejo T, Vo NT, Yan SC, Zierten DL,
Zhao S, Sachidanandam R, Trask BJ, Myers RM, Cox DR. A high-resolution radiation hybrid map
of the human genome draft sequence. Science 2001;291:1298–1302. [PubMed: 11181994]
The NCBI Handbook

Data Flow and Processing

The NCBI Handbook

The Entrez Search and Retrieval System

[Chapter 15]

Jim Ostell

Summary
Entrez is the text-based search and retrieval system used at NCBI for all of the major databases,
including PubMed, Nucleotide and Protein Sequences, Protein Structures, Complete Genomes,
Taxonomy, OMIM, and many others. Entrez is at once an indexing and retrieval system, a collection
The NCBI Handbook

of data from many sources, and an organizing principle for biomedical information. These general
concepts are the focus of this chapter. Other chapters cover the details of a specific Entrez database
(e.g., PubMed in Chapter 2) or a specific source of data (e.g., GenBank in Chapter 1).

Entrez Design Principles

History
The first version of Entrez was distributed by NCBI in 1991 on CD-ROM. At that time, it
consisted of nucleotide sequences from GenBank and PDB; protein sequences from translated
GenBank, PIR, SWISS-PROT, PDB, and PRF; and associated citations and abstracts from
MEDLINE (now PubMed and referred to as PubMed below). We will use this first design to
illustrate the principles behind Entrez.

Entrez Nodes Represent Data

The NCBI Handbook

An Entrez “node” is a collection of data that is grouped together and indexed together. It is
usually referred to as an Entrez database. In the first version of Entrez, there were three nodes:
published articles, nucleotide sequences, and protein sequences. Each node represents specific
data objects of the same type, e.g., protein sequences, which are each given a unique ID (UID)
within that logical Entrez Proteins node. Records in a node may come from a single source
(e.g., all published articles are from PubMed) or many sources (e.g., proteins are from translated
GenBank sequences, SWISS-PROT, or PIR) (Figure 1).
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The original version of Entrez had just 3 nodes: nucleotides, proteins, and PubMed abstracts.
Entrez has now grown to nearly 20 nodes

Note that the UID identifies a single, well-defined object (i.e., a particular protein sequence or
PubMed citation). There may be other information about objects in nodes, such as protein
names or EC numbers, that may be used as index terms to find the record, but these pieces of
information are not the central organizing principle of the node. Each data object represents a
stable, objective observation of data as much as possible, rather than interpretations of the data,
which are subject to change or confusion over time or across disciplines. For example, barring
The NCBI Handbook

experimental error, a particular mRNA sequence report is not likely to change over the years;
however, the given name, position on the chromosome, or function of the protein product may
well change as our knowledge develops. Even a published article is a stable observation. The
fact that the article was published at a certain time and contained certain words will not change
over time, although the importance of the article topic may change many times.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Entrez Nodes Are Intended for Linking

Another criterion for selecting a particular data type to be an Entrez node is to enable linking
to other Entrez nodes in a useful and reliable way. For example, given a protein sequence, it
is very useful to quickly find the nucleotide sequence that encodes it. Or given a research article,
it is useful to find the sequences it describes, if any.

Links between Nodes

One way to achieve this is to put all of the information into one record. For example, many
GenBank records contain pertinent article citations. However, PubMed also contains the article
abstract and additional index terms (e.g., MeSH terms); furthermore, the bibliographic
information is also more carefully curated than the citation in a GenBank entry. It therefore
makes much more sense to search for articles in PubMed rather than in GenBank.

When a subset of articles has been retrieved from PubMed, it may be useful to link to sequence
The NCBI Handbook

information associated with the abstracts. The article citation in the GenBank record can be
used to establish the link to PubMed and, conversely, to make the reciprocal link from the
PubMed article back to the GenBank record. Treating each Entrez node separately but enabling
linking between related data in different nodes means that the retrieval characteristics for each
node can be optimized for the characteristics and strengths of that node, whereas related data
can be reached in nodes with different strengths.

This approach also means that new connections between data can be made. In the example
above, the GenBank record cited the published article, but there was no link from that article
in PubMed to the sequence until Entrez made the reciprocal link from PubMed. Now, when
searching articles in PubMed, it is possible to find this sequence, although no PubMed records
have been changed. Because of this design principle, the Entrez system is richly interconnected,
although any particular association may originate from only one record in one node.

Links within Nodes

The NCBI Handbook

Another type of linking in Entrez is between records of the same type, often called “neighbors”,
in sequence and structure nodes. Most often these associations are computed at NCBI. For
example, in Entrez Proteins, all of the protein sequences are “BLASTed” against each other,
and the highest-scoring hits are stored as indexes within the node. This means that each protein
record has associated with it a list of highly similar sequences, or neighbors.

Again, associations that may not be present in the original records can be made. For example,
a well-annotated SWISS-PROT record for a particular protein may have fields that describe
other protein or GenBank records from which it was derived. At a later date, a closely related
protein may appear in GenBank that will not be referenced by the SWISS-PROT record.
However, if a scientist finds an article in PubMed that has a link to the new GenBank record,
that person can look at the protein and then use the BLAST-computed neighbors to find the
SWISS-PROT record (as well as many others), although neither the SWISS-PROT record nor
the new GenBank record refers to each other anywhere.

Entrez Nodes Are Intended for Computation

The NCBI Handbook

There are many advantages to establishing new associations by computational methods (as in
the GenBank–SWISS-PROT example above), especially for large, rapidly changing data sets
such as those in biomedicine.

As computers get faster and cheaper, this type of association can be made more efficiently. As
data sets get bigger, the problem remains tractable or may even improve because of better
statistics. If a new algorithm or approach is found to be an improvement, it is possible to apply

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

it over the whole data set within a practical timescale and by using a reasonable number of
resources. Any associations that require human curation, such as the application of controlled
vocabularies, do not scale well with rapidly growing sets of data or evolving data
interpretations. Although these manual kinds of approaches certainly add value, computational
approaches can often produce good results more objectively and efficiently.

Entrez Is a Discovery System

A data-retrieval system succeeds when you can retrieve the same data you put in. A discovery
system is intended to let you find more information than appears in the original data. By making
links between selected nodes and making computed associations within the same node, Entrez
is designed to infer relationships between different data that may suggest future experiments
or assist in interpretation of the available information, although it may come from different
sources.
The NCBI Handbook

The ability to compare genotype information across a huge range of organisms is a powerful
tool for molecular biologists. For example, this technique was used in the discovery of a gene
associated with hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC). The tumor cells from most
familial cases of HNPCC had altered, short, repeated DNA sequences, suggesting that DNA
replication errors had occurred during tumor development. This information caused a group
of investigators to look for human homologs of the well-characterized Escherichia coli DNA
mismatch repair enzyme, MutS (1). Mutants in a MutS homolog in yeast, MSH2, showed
expansion and contraction of dinucleotide repeats similar to the mutation found in the human
tumor cells. By comparing the protein sequences between the yeast MSH2, the E. coli MutS,
and a human gene product isolated and cloned from HNPCC colorectal tumor, the researchers
could show that the amino acid sequences of all three proteins were very similar. From this,
they inferred that the human gene, which they called hMSH2, may also play a role in repairing
DNA, and that the mutation found in tumors negatively affects this function, leading to tumor
development.

The researchers could connect the functional data about the yeast and bacterial genes with the
The NCBI Handbook

genetic mapping and clinical phenotype information in humans. Entrez is designed to support
this kind of process when the underlying data are available electronically. In PubMed, the
research paper about the discovery of hMSH2 (1) has links to the protein sequence, which in
turn has links to “neighbors” (related sequences). There are lots of records for this protein and
its relatives in many organisms, but among them are the proteins from yeast and E. coli that
prompted the study. From those records there are links back to the PubMed abstracts of articles
that reported these proteins. PubMed also has a “neighbor” function, Related articles, that
represents other articles that contain words and phrases in common with the current record.
Because phrases such as “Escherichia coli”, “mismatch repair”, and "MutS" all occur in the
current article, many of the articles most related to this one describe studies on the E. coli
mismatch repair system. These articles may not be directly linked to any sequence themselves
and may not contain the words “human” or “colon cancer” but are relevant to HNPCC
nonetheless, because of what the bacterial system may tell us.

Entrez Is Growing
The NCBI Handbook

The original three-node Entrez system has evolved over the past 10 years to include more nodes
(Figure 1). These include:
1 Taxonomy, which is organized around the names and phylogenetic relationships of
organisms
2 Structure, organized around the three-dimensional structures of proteins and nucleic
acids

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

3 Genomes, in which each record represents a chromosome of an organism

4 Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), a text-based resource organized
around human genes and their phenotypes
5 PopSet, consisting of collections of aligned sequences from a single population study
6 Books, representing published books in biomedicine
More nodes are planned for addition in the near future. Each one of these nodes is richly
connected to others. Each offers unique information and unique new relationships among its
members. The combination of new links and new relationships increases the chances for
discovery. The addition of each new node creates different paths through the data that may
lead to new connections, without more work on the old nodes.

How Entrez Works

Entrez integrates data from a large number of sources, formats, and databases into a uniform
The NCBI Handbook

information model and retrieval system. The actual databases from which records are retrieved
and on which the Entrez indexes are based have different designs, based on the type of data,
and reside on different machines. These will be referred to as the “source databases”. A
common theme in the implementation of Entrez is that some functions are unique to each source
database, whereas others are common to all Entrez databases.

A Division of Labor: Basic Principles

Some of the common routines and formats for every Entrez node include the term lists and
posting files (i.e., the retrieval engine) used for Boolean queries, the links within and between
nodes, and the summary format used for listing search results in which each record is called a
DocSum. Generally, an Entrez query is a Boolean expression that is evaluated by the common
Entrez engine and yields a list of unique ID numbers (UIDs), which identify records in an
Entrez node. Given one or more UIDs, Entrez can retrieve the DocSum(s) very quickly. The
links made within or between Entrez nodes from one or more UIDs is also a function across
all Entrez source databases.
The NCBI Handbook

The software that tracks the addition of new or updated records or identifies those that should
be deleted from Entrez may be unique for each source database. Each database must also have
accompanying software to gather index terms, DocSums, and links from the source data and
present them to the common Entrez indexer. This can be achieved through either a set of C++
libraries or by generating an XML document in a specific DTD that contains the terms,
DocSums, and links. Although the common engine retrieves a DocSum(s) given a UID(s), the
retrieval of a full, formatted record is directed to the source database, where software unique
to that database is used to format the record correctly. All of this software is written by the
NCBI group that runs the database.

This combination of database-specific software and a common set of Entrez routines and
applications allows code sharing and common large-retrieval server administration but enables
flexibility and simplicity for a wide variety of data sources.
The NCBI Handbook

Software
Although the basic principles of Entrez have remained the same for almost a decade, the
software implementation has been through at least three major redesigns and many minor ones.

Currently, Entrez is written using the NCBI C++ Toolkit. The indexing fields (which for
PubMed, for example, would be Title, Author, Publication Date, Journal, Abstract, and so on)
and DocSum fields (which for PubMed are Author, Title, Journal, Publication Date, Volume,

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

and Page Number) for each node are defined in a configuration file; but for performance at
runtime, the configuration files are used to automatically generate base classes for each
database. These are the basic pieces of information used by Entrez that can also be inherited
and used by more database-specific, hand-coded features. The term indexes are based on the
Indexed Sequential-Access Method (ISAM) and are in large, shared, memory-mapped files.
The postings are large bitmaps, with one bit per document in the node. Depending on how
sparsely populated the posting is, the bit array is adaptively compressed on disk using one of
four possible schemes. Boolean operations are performed by using AND or OR postings of bit
arrays into a result bit array. DocSums are small, fielded data structures stored on the same
machines as the postings to support rapid retrieval.

The Web-based Entrez retrieval program, called query, is a fast cgi application that uses the
Web application framework from the NCBI C++ Toolkit. One aspect of this framework is a
set of classes that represents an HTML page. These classes allow the combination of static
template pages, on the fly, with callbacks to class methods at tagged parts of the template. The
The NCBI Handbook

Web page generated in an Entrez session contains elements from static templates and elements
generated dynamically from common Entrez classes and from classes unique to one or a few
Entrez nodes. Again, this design supports a common core of robust, common functionality
maintained by one group, with support for customizations by diverse groups within NCBI.

Boolean query processing, DocSum retrieval, and other common functions are supported on a
number of load-balanced “front-end” UNIX machines. Because Entrez can support session
context (for example, in the use of query history, NCBI Cubby, Filters, etc.), a “history server”
has been implemented on the front-end machines so that if a user is sent to machine “A” by
the load balancer for their first query but to machine “B” for the second query, Entrez can
quickly locate the user's query history and obtain it from machine “A”. Other than that, the
front-end machines are completely independent of each other and can be added and removed
readily from query support. Retrieval of full documents comes from a variety of “back-end”
databases, depending on the node. These might be Sybase or Microsoft SQL Server relational
databases of a variety of schemas or text files of various formats. Links are supported using
The NCBI Handbook

the Sybase IQ database product.

References
1. Fishel R, Lescoe MK, Rao MR, Copeland NG, Jenkins NA, Garber J, Kane M, Kolodner R. The human
mutator gene homolog MSH2 and its association with hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer. Cell
1993;75:1027–1038. [PubMed: 8252616]
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

The BLAST Sequence Analysis Tool

[Chapter 16]

Tom Madden

Summary
The comparison of nucleotide or protein sequences from the same or different organisms is a very
powerful tool in molecular biology. By finding similarities between sequences, scientists can infer
the function of newly sequenced genes, predict new members of gene families, and explore
The NCBI Handbook

evolutionary relationships. Now that whole genomes are being sequenced, sequence similarity
searching can be used to predict the location and function of protein-coding and transcription-
regulation regions in genomic DNA.
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) (1, 2) is the tool most frequently used for calculating
sequence similarity. BLAST comes in variations for use with different query sequences against
different databases. All BLAST applications, as well as information on which BLAST program to
use and other help documentation, are listed on the BLAST homepage. This chapter will focus more
on how BLAST works, its output, and how both the output and program itself can be further
manipulated or customized, rather than on how to use BLAST or interpret BLAST results.

Introduction
The way most people use BLAST is to input a nucleotide or protein sequence as a query against
all (or a subset of) the public sequence databases, pasting the sequence into the textbox on one
The NCBI Handbook

of the BLAST Web pages. This sends the query over the Internet, the search is performed on
the NCBI databases and servers, and the results are posted back to the person's browser in the
chosen display format. However, many biotech companies, genome scientists, and
bioinformatics personnel may want to use “stand-alone” BLAST to query their own, local
databases or want to customize BLAST in some way to make it better suit their needs. Stand-
alone BLAST comes in two forms: the executables that can be run from the command line; or
the Standalone WWW BLAST Server, which allows users to set up their own in-house versions
of the BLAST Web pages.

There are many different variations of BLAST available to use for different sequence
comparisons, e.g., a DNA query to a DNA database, a protein query to a protein database, and
a DNA query, translated in all six reading frames, to a protein sequence database. Other
adaptations of BLAST, such as PSI-BLAST (for iterative protein sequence similarity searches
using a position-specific score matrix) and RPS-BLAST (for searching for protein domains in
the Conserved Domains Database, Chapter 3) perform comparisons against sequence profiles.
The NCBI Handbook

This chapter will first describe the BLAST architecture—how it works at the NCBI site—and
then go on to describe the various BLAST outputs. The best known of these outputs is the
default display from BLAST Web pages, the so-called “traditional report”. As well as obtaining
BLAST results in the traditional report, results can also be delivered in structured output, such
as a hit table (see below), XML, or ASN.1. The optimal choice of output format depends upon
the application. The final part of the chapter discusses stand-alone BLAST and describes
possibilities for customization. There are many interfaces to BLAST that are often not exploited
by users but can lead to more efficient and robust applications.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

How BLAST Works: The Basics

The BLAST algorithm is a heuristic program, which means that it relies on some smart
shortcuts to perform the search faster. BLAST performs "local" alignments. Most proteins are
modular in nature, with functional domains often being repeated within the same protein as
well as across different proteins from different species. The BLAST algorithm is tuned to find
these domains or shorter stretches of sequence similarity. The local alignment approach also
means that a mRNA can be aligned with a piece of genomic DNA, as is frequently required in
genome assembly and analysis. If instead BLAST started out by attempting to align two
sequences over their entire lengths (known as a global alignment), fewer similarities would be
detected, especially with respect to domains and motifs.

When a query is submitted via one of the BLAST Web pages, the sequence, plus any other
input information such as the database to be searched, word size, expect value, and so on, are
fed to the algorithm on the BLAST server. BLAST works by first making a look-up table of
The NCBI Handbook

all the “words” (short subsequences, which for proteins the default is three letters) and
“neighboring words”, i.e., similar words in the query sequence. The sequence database is then
scanned for these “hot spots”. When a match is identified, it is used to initiate gap-free and
gapped extensions of the “word”.

BLAST does not search GenBank flatfiles (or any subset of GenBank flatfiles) directly. Rather,
sequences are made into BLAST databases. Each entry is split, and two files are formed, one
containing just the header information and one containing just the sequence information. These
are the data that the algorithm uses. If BLAST is to be run in “stand-alone” mode, the data file
could consist of local, private data, downloaded NCBI BLAST databases, or a combination of
the two.

After the algorithm has looked up all possible "words" from the query sequence and extended
them maximally, it assembles the best alignment for each query–sequence pair and writes this
information to an SeqAlign data structure (in ASN.1 ; also used by Sequin, see Chapter 12).
The SeqAlign structure in itself does not contain the sequence information; rather, it refers to
The NCBI Handbook

the sequences in the BLAST database (Figure 1).

The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

How the BLAST results Web pages are assembled

The QBLAST system located on the BLAST server executes the search, writing information
about the sequence alignment in ASN.1. The results can then be formatted by fetching the
ASN.1 (fetch ASN.1) and fetching the sequences (fetch sequence) from the BLAST databases.
Because the execution of the search algorithm is decoupled from the formatting, the results
can be delivered in a variety of formats without re-running the search.

The BLAST Formatter, which sits on the BLAST server, can use the information in the
SeqAlign to retrieve the similar sequences found and display them in a variety of ways. Thus,
once a query has been completed, the results can be reformatted without having to re-execute
the search. This is possible because of the QBLAST system.
The NCBI Handbook

BLAST Scores and Statistics

Once BLAST has found a similar sequence to the query in the database, it is helpful to have
some idea of whether the alignment is “good” and whether it portrays a possible biological
relationship, or whether the similarity observed is attributable to chance alone. BLAST uses
statistical theory to produce a bit score and expect value (E-value) for each alignment pair
(query to hit).

The bit score gives an indication of how good the alignment is; the higher the score, the better
the alignment. In general terms, this score is calculated from a formula that takes into account
the alignment of similar or identical residues, as well as any gaps introduced to align the
sequences. A key element in this calculation is the “substitution matrix ”, which assigns a score
for aligning any possible pair of residues. The BLOSUM62 matrix is the default for most
BLAST programs, the exceptions being blastn and MegaBLAST (programs that perform
nucleotide–nucleotide comparisons and hence do not use protein-specific matrices). Bit scores
The NCBI Handbook

are normalized, which means that the bit scores from different alignments can be compared,
even if different scoring matrices have been used.

The E-value gives an indication of the statistical significance of a given pairwise alignment
and reflects the size of the database and the scoring system used. The lower the E-value, the
more significant the hit. A sequence alignment that has an E-value of 0.05 means that this
similarity has a 5 in 100 (1 in 20) chance of occurring by chance alone. Although a statistician

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

might consider this to be significant, it still may not represent a biologically meaningful result,
and analysis of the alignments (see below) is required to determine “biological” significance.

BLAST Output: 1. The Traditional Report

Most BLAST users are familiar with the so-called “traditional” BLAST report. The report
consists of three major sections: (1) the header, which contains information about the query
sequence, the database searched (Figure 2). On the Web, there is also a graphical overview
(Figure 3); (2) the one-line descriptions of each database sequence found to match the query
sequence; these provide a quick overview for browsing (Figure 4); (3) the alignments for each
database sequence matched (Figure 5) (there may be more than one alignment for a database
sequence it matches).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The BLAST report header

The top line gives information about the type of program (in this case, BLASTP), the version
(2.2.1), and a version release date. The research paper that describes BLAST is then cited,
followed by the request ID (issued by QBLAST), the query sequence definition line, and a
summary of the database searched. The Taxonomy reports link displays this BLAST result
on the basis of information in the Taxonomy database (Chapter 4).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Graphical overview of BLAST results

The query sequence is represented by the numbered red bar at the top of the figure. Database
hits are shown aligned to the query, below the red bar. Of the aligned sequences, the most
similar are shown closest to the query. In this case, there are three high-scoring database
matches that align to most of the query sequence. The next twelve bars represent lower-scoring
matches that align to two regions of the query, from about residues 3–60 and residues 220–
500. The cross-hatched parts of the these bars indicate that the two regions of similarity are
The NCBI Handbook

on the same protein, but that this intervening region does not match. The remaining bars show
lower-scoring alignments. Mousing over the bars displays the definition line for that sequence
to be shown in the window above the graphic.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

One-line descriptions in the BLAST report

The NCBI Handbook

Each line is composed of four fields: (a) the gi number, database designation, Accession
number, and locus name for the matched sequence, separated by vertical bars (Appendix 1);
(b) a brief textual description of the sequence, the definition. This usually includes information
on the organism from which the sequence was derived, the type of sequence (e.g., mRNA or
DNA), and some information about function or phenotype. The definition line is often truncated
in the one-line descriptions to keep the display compact; (c) the alignment score in bits. Higher
scoring hits are found at the top of the list; and (d) the E-value, which provides an estimate of
statistical significance. For the first hit in the list, the gi number is 116365, the database
designation is sp (for SWISS-PROT), the Accession number is P26374, the locus name is
RAE2_HUMAN, the definition line is Rab proteins, the score is 1216, and the E-value is 0.0.
Note that the first 17 hits have very low E-values (much less than 1) and are either RAB proteins
or GDP dissociation inhibitors. The other database matches have much higher E-values, 0.5
and above, which means that these sequences may have been matched by chance alone.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

A pairwise sequence alignment from a BLAST report

The alignment is preceded by the sequence identifier, the full definition line, and the length of
the matched sequence, in amino acids. Next comes the bit score (the raw score is in
parentheses) and then the E-value. The following line contains information on the number of
identical residues in this alignment (Identities), the number of conservative substitutions
(Positives), and if applicable, the number of gaps in the alignment. Finally, the actual alignment
is shown, with the query on top, and the database match is labeled as Sbjct, below. The numbers
at left and right refer to the position in the amino acid sequence. One or more dashes (–) within
a sequence indicate insertions or deletions. Amino acid residues in the query sequence that
have been masked because of low complexity are replaced by Xs (see, for example, the
fourth and last blocks). The line between the two sequences indicates the similarities between
the sequences. If the query and the subject have the same amino acid at a given location, the
residue itself is shown. Conservative substitutions, as judged by the substitution matrix, are
indicated with +.

The traditional report is really designed for human readability, as opposed to being parsed by
The NCBI Handbook

a program. For example, the one-line descriptions are useful for people to get a quick overview
of their search results, but they are rarely complete descriptors because of limited space. Also,
for convenience, there are several pieces of information that are displayed in both the one-line
descriptions and alignments (for example, the E-values, scores, and descriptions); therefore,
the person viewing the search output does not need to move back and forth between sections.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

New features may be added to the report, e.g., the addition of links to Entrez Gene records
(Chapter 19) from sequence hits, which result in a change of output format. These are easy for
people to pick up on and take advantage of but can trip programs that parse this BLAST output.

By default, a maximum of 500 sequence matches are displayed, which can be changed on the
advanced BLAST page with the Alignments option. Many components of the BLAST results
display via the Internet and are hyperlinked to the same information at different places in the
page, to additional information including help documentation, and to the Entrez sequence
records of matched sequences. These records provide more information about the sequence,
including links to relevant research abstracts in PubMed.

BLAST Output: 2. The Hit Table

Although the traditional report is ideal for investigating the characteristics of one gene or
protein, often scientists want to make a large number of BLAST runs for a specialized purpose
The NCBI Handbook

and need only a subset of the information contained in the traditional BLAST report.
Furthermore, in cases where the BLAST output will be processed further, it can be unreliable
to parse the traditional report. The traditional report is merely a display format with no formal
structure or rules, and improvements may be made at any time, changing the underlying HTML.
The hit table format provides a simple and clean alternative (Figure 6).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

BLAST output in hit table format

This shows the results of a search of an E. coli database using a human sequence as a query.
The lines starting with a # sign should be considered comments and ignored. The last comment
line lists the fields in the table.
The NCBI Handbook

The screening of many newly sequenced human Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) for
contamination by the Escherichia coli cloning vector is a good example of when it is preferable
to use the hit table output over the traditional report. In this case, a strict, high E-value threshold
would be applied to differentiate between contaminating E. coli sequence and the human
sequence. Those human ESTs that find very strong, near-exact E.coli sequence matches can
be discarded without further examination. (Borderline cases may require further examination
by a scientist.)

For these purposes, the hit table output is more useful than the traditional report; it contains
only the information required in a more formal structure. The hit table output contains no
sequences or definition lines, but for each sequence matched, it lists the sequence identifier,
the start and stop points for stretches of sequence similarity (offset by one residue), the percent
identity of the match, and the E-value.

BLAST Output: 3. Structured Output

The NCBI Handbook

There are drawbacks to parsing both the BLAST report and even the simpler hit table. There
is no way to automatically check for truncated or otherwise corrupted output in cases when a
large number of sequences are being screened. (This may happen if the disk is full, for example.)
Also, there is no rigorous check for syntax changes in the output, such as the addition of new
features, which can lead to erroneous parsing. Structured output allows for automatic and
rigorous checks for syntax errors and changes. Both XML and ASN.1 are examples of
structured output in which there are built-in checks for correct and complete syntax and
structure. (In the case of XML, for example, this is ensured by the necessity for matching tags
and the DTD.) For text reports, there is often no specification, but perhaps a (incomplete)
description of the file is written afterward.

ASN.1 Is Used by the BLAST Server

As well as the hit table and traditional report shown in HTML, BLAST results can also be
formatted in plain text, XML, and ASN.1 (Figure 7), and what's more, the format for a given
BLAST result can be changed without re-executing the search.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The different output formats that can be produced from ASN.1

Note that some nodes can be viewed as both HTML and text. XML is also structured output
but can be produced from ASN.1 because it has equivalent information.

A change in BLAST format without re-executing the search is possible because when a scientist
looks at a Web page of BLAST results at NCBI, the HTML that makes that page has been
created from ASN.1 (Figure 7). Although the formatted results are requested from the server,
the information about the alignments is fetched from a disk in ASN.1, as are the corresponding
The NCBI Handbook

sequences from the BLAST databases (see Figure 1). The formatter on the BLAST server then
puts these results together as a BLAST report. The BLAST search itself has been uncoupled
from the way the result is formatted, thus allowing different output formats from the same
search. The strict internal validation of ASN.1 ensures that these output formats can always be
produced reliably.

Information about the Alignment Is Contained within a SeqAlign

SeqAlign is the ASN.1 object that contains the alignment information about the BLAST search.
The SeqAlign does not contain the actual sequence that was found in the match but does contain
the start, stop, and gap information, as well as scores, E-values, sequence identifiers, and (DNA)
strand information.

As mentioned above, the actual database sequences are fetched from the BLAST databases
when needed. This means that an identifier must uniquely identify a sequence in the database.
Furthermore, the query sequence cannot have the same identifier as any sequence in the
The NCBI Handbook

database unless the query sequence itself is in the database. If one is using stand-alone BLAST
with a custom database, it is possible to specify that every sequence is uniquely identified by
using the –O option with formatdb (the program that converts FASTA files to BLAST database
format). This also indexes the entries by identifier. Similarly, the –J option in the (stand-alone)
programs blastall, blastpgp, megablast, or rpsblast certifies that the query does not use an
identifier already in the database for a different sequence. If the –O and –J options are not

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

used, BLAST assigns unique identifiers (for that run) to all sequences and shields the user from
this knowledge.

Any BLAST database or FASTA file from the NCBI Web site that contains gi numbers already
satisfies the uniqueness criterion. Unique identifiers are normally a problem only when custom
databases are produced and care is not taken in assigning identifiers. The identifier for a FASTA
entry is the first token (meaning the letters up to the first space) after the > sign on the definition
line. The simplest case is to simply have a unique token (e.g., 1, 2, and so on), but it is possible
to construct more complicated identifiers that might, for example, describe the data source.
For the FASTA identifiers to be reliably parsed, it is necessary for them to follow a specific
syntax (see Appendix 1).

More information on the SeqAlign produced by BLAST can be found here or be downloaded
as a PowerPoint presentation, as well as from the NCBI Toolkit Software Developer's
handbook.
The NCBI Handbook

XML
XML and ASN.1 are both structured languages and can express the same information;
therefore, it is possible to produce a SeqAlign in XML. Some users do not find the format of
the information in the SeqAlign to be convenient because it does not contain actual sequence
information, and when the sequence is fetched from the BLAST database, it is packed two or
four bases per byte. Typically, these users are familiar with the BLAST report and want
something similar but in a format that can be parsed reliably. The XML produced by BLAST
meets this need, containing the query and database sequences, sequence definition lines, the
start and stop points of the alignments (one offset), as well as scores, E-values, and percent
identity. There is a public DTD for this XML output.

BLAST Code
The BLAST code is part of the NCBI Toolkit, which has many low-level functions to make it
The NCBI Handbook

platform independent; the Toolkit is supported under Linux and many varieties of UNIX, NT,
and MacOS. To use the Toolkit, developers should write a function “Main”, which is called
by the Toolkit “main”. The BLAST code is contained mostly in the tools directory (see
Appendix 2 for an example).

The BLAST code has a modular design. For example, the Application Programming Interface
(API) for retrieval from the BLAST databases is independent of the compute engine. The
compute engine is independent from the formatter; therefore, it is possible (as mentioned
above) to compute results once but view them in many different modes.

Readdb API
The readdb API can be used to easily extract information from the BLAST databases. Among
the data available are the date the database was produced, the title, the number of letters, number
of sequences, and the longest sequence. Also available are the sequence and description of any
entry. The latest version of the BLAST databases also contains a taxid (an integer specifying
The NCBI Handbook

some node of the NCBI taxonomy tree; see Chapter 4). Users are strongly encouraged to use
the readdb API rather than reading the files associated with the database, because the the files
are subject to change. The API, on the other hand, will support the newest version, and an
attempt will be made to support older versions. See Appendix 2 for an example of a simple
program (db2fasta.c) that demonstrates the use of the readdb API.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

Performing a BLAST Search with C Function Calls

Only a few function calls are needed to perform a BLAST search. Appendix 3 shows an excerpt
from a Demonstration Program doblast.c.

Formatting a SeqAlign
MySeqAlignPrint (called in the example in Appendix 3) is a simple function to print a view
of a SeqAlign (see Appendix 4).

Appendix 1. FASTA identifiers

The syntax of the FASTA definition lines used in the NCBI BLAST databases depends upon
the database from which each sequence was obtained (see Chapter 1 on GenBank). Table 1
shows how the sequence source databases are identified.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Database identifiers in FASTA definition lines
Database name Identifier syntax

GenBank gb|accession|locus

EMBL Data Library emb|accession|locus

DDBJ, DNA Database of Japan dbj|accession|locus

NBRF PIR pir||entry

Protein Research Foundation prf||name

SWISS-PROT sp|accession|entry name

Brookhaven Protein Data Bank pdb|entry|chain

Patents pat|country|number
The NCBI Handbook

GenInfo Backbone Id bbs|number

a
General database identifier gnl|database|identifier

NCBI Reference Sequence ref|accession|locus

Local Sequence identifier lcl|identifier

a
gnl allows databases not included in this list to use the same identifying syntax. This is used for sequences in the trace databases, e.g., gnl|ti|
53185177. The combination of the second and third fields should be unique.

For example, if the identifier of a sequence in a BLAST result is gb|M73307|AGMA13GT, the

gb tag indicates that sequence is from GenBank, M73307 is the GenBank Accession number,
and AGMA13GT is the GenBank locus.

The bar (|) separates different fields. In some cases, a field is left empty, although the original
specification called for including this field. To make these identifiers backwards-compatible
for older parsers, the empty field is denoted by an additional bar (||).

A gi identifier has been assigned to each sequence in NCBI's sequence databases. If the
The NCBI Handbook

sequence is from an NCBI database, then the gi number appears at the beginning of the identifier
in a traditional report. For example, gi|16760827|ref|NP_456444.1 indicates an NCBI reference
sequence with the gi number 16760827 and Accession number NP_456444.1. (In stand-alone
BLAST, or when running BLAST from the command line, the –I option should be used to
display the gi number.)

The reason for adding the gi identifier is to provide a uniform, stable naming convention. If a
nucleotide or protein sequence changes (for example, if it is edited by the original submitter
of the sequence), a new gi identifier is assigned, but the Accession number of the record remains
unchanged. Thus, the gi identifier provides a mechanism for identifying the exact sequence
that was used or retrieved in a given search. This is also useful when creating crosslinks between
different Entrez databases (Chapter 15).

Appendix 2. Readdb API

The NCBI Handbook

A simple program (db2fasta.c) that demonstrates the use of the readdb API.

Int2 Main (void)

{
BioseqPtr bsp;
Boolean is_prot;

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook

ReadDBFILEPtr rdfp;
FILE *fp;
Int4 index;
if (! GetArgs ("db2fasta", NUMARG, myargs))
{
return (1);
}
if (myargs[1].intvalue)
is_prot = TRUE;
else
is_prot = FALSE;
fp = FileOpen("stdout", "w");
rdfp = readdb_new(myargs[0].strvalue, is_prot);
index = readdb_acc2fasta(rdfp, myargs[2].strvalue);
The NCBI Handbook

bsp = readdb_get_bioseq(rdfp, index);

BioseqRawToFasta(bsp, fp, !is_prot);
bsp = BioseqFree(bsp);
rdfp = readdb_destruct(rdfp);
return 0;
}

Note that:
1 Readdb_new allocates an object for reading the database.
2 Readdb_acc2fasta fetches the ordinal number (zero offset) of the record given a
FASTA identifier (e.g., gb|AAH06776.1|AAH0676).
3 Readdb_get_bioseq fetches the BioseqPtr (which contains the sequence, description,
and identifiers) for this record.
4 BioseqRawToFasta dumps the sequence as FASTA.
The NCBI Handbook

Note also that Main is called, rather than “main”, and a call to GetArgs is used to get the
command-line arguments. db2fasta.c is contained in the tar archive ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/blast/
demo/blast_demo.tar.gz.

Appendix 3. Excerpt from a demonstration program doblast.c

/* Get default options. */

options = BLASTOptionNew(blast_program, TRUE);
if (options == NULL)
return 5;

options->expect_value = (Nlm_FloatHi) myargs [3].floatvalue;

/* Perform the actual search. */

The NCBI Handbook

seqalign = BioseqBlastEngine(query_bsp, blast_program, blast_database,

options,

NULL, NULL, NULL);

/* Do something with the SeqAlign... */

MySeqAlignPrint(seqalign, outfp);

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

/* clean up. */
seqalign = SeqAlignSetFree(seqalign);
options = BLASTOptionDelete(options);

sep = SeqEntryFree(sep);
FileClose(infp);
FileClose(outfp);

The main steps here are:

1 BLASTOptionNew allocates a BLASTOptionBlk with default values for the
specified program (e.g., blastp); the Boolean argument specifies a gapped search.
2 The expect_value member of the BLASTOptionBlk is changed to a non-default value
specified on the command-line.
The NCBI Handbook

3 BioseqBlastEngine performs the search of the BioseqPtr (query_bsp). The BioseqPtr

could have been obtained from the BLAST databases, Entrez, or from FASTA using
the function call FastaToSeqEntry.
The BLASTOptionBlk structure contains a large number of members. The most useful ones
and a brief description for each are listed in Table 2.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2
The most frequently used BLAST options in the BLASTOptionBlk structure
Typea Element Description

Nlm_FloatHi expect_value Expect value cutoff

Int2 wordsize Number of letters used in making words for lookup table

Int2 penalty Mismatch penalty (only blastn and MegaBLAST)

Int2 reward Match reward (only blastn and MegaBLAST)

CharPtr matrix Matrix used for comparison (not blastn or MegaBLAST)

Int4 gap_open Cost for gap existence

Int4 gap_extend Cost to extend a gap one more letter (including first)

CharPtr filter_string Filtering options (e.g., L, mL)

The NCBI Handbook

Int4 hitlist_size Number of database sequences to save hits for

Int2 number_of_cpus Number of CPUs to use

a
The types are given in terms of those in the NCBI Toolkit. Nlm_FloatHi is a double, Int2/Int4 are 2- or 4-byte integers, and CharPtr is just char*.

Appendix 4. A function to print a view of a SeqAlign: MySeqAlignPrint

#define BUFFER_LEN 50

/*
Print a report on hits with start/stop. Zero-offset is used.
*/
static void MySeqAlignPrint(SeqAlignPtr seqalign, FILE *outfp)
{
Char query_id_buf[BUFFER_LEN+1], target_id_buf[BUFFER_LEN+1];
SeqIdPtr query_id, target_id;
The NCBI Handbook

while (seqalign)
{
query_id = SeqAlignId(seqalign, 0);
SeqIdWrite(query_id, query_id_buf, PRINTID_FASTA_LONG, BUFFER_LEN);

target_id = SeqAlignId(seqalign, 1);

SeqIdWrite(target_id, target_id_buf, PRINTID_FASTA_LONG, BUFFER_LEN);

fprintf(outfp, "%s:%ld-%ld\t%s:%ld-%ld\n",
query_id_buf, (long) SeqAlignStart(seqalign, 0), (long) SeqAlignStop
(seqalign, 0),
target_id_buf, (long) SeqAlignStart(seqalign, 1), (long)
SeqAlignStop(seqalign, 1));
seqalign = seqalign->next;
The NCBI Handbook

}
return;
}

Note that:
1 SeqAlignId gets the sequence identifier for the zero-th identifier (zero offset). This is
actually a C structure.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

2 SeqIdWrite formats the information in query_id into a FASTA identifier (e.g., gi|
129295) and places it into query_buf.
3 SeqAlignStart and SeqAlignStop return the start values of the zero-th and first
sequences (or first and second).
All of this is done by high-level function calls, and it is not necessary to write low-level function
calls to parse the ASN.1.

References
1. Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, Myers EW, Lipman DJ. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. J Mol
Biol 1990;215:403–410. [PubMed: 2231712]
2. Altschul SF, Madden TL, Schaffer AA, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, Lipman DJ. Gapped BLAST and
PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res 1997;25:3389–
3402. [PubMed: 9254694]146917
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

LinkOut: Linking to External Resources from Entrez Databases

[Chapter 17]

Kathy Kwan

Summary
The power of linking is one of the most important developments that the World Wide Web offers to
the scientific and research community. By providing a convenient and effective means for sharing
ideas, linking helps scientists and scholars promote their research goals.
The NCBI Handbook

LinkOut is a powerful linking feature of the Entrez search and retrieval system (Chapter 15). It is
designed to provide Entrez users with links from database records to a wide variety of relevant online
resources, including full-text publications, biological databases, consumer health information, and
research tools. (See Sample Links for examples of LinkOut resources.) The goal of LinkOut is to
facilitate access to relevant online resources beyond the Entrez system to extend, clarify, or
supplement information found in the Entrez databases. By branching out to relevant resources on the
Web, LinkOut expands on the theme of Entrez as an information discovery system.

How Is LinkOut Represented in Entrez?

Any Entrez database record, e.g., a nucleotide sequence, a taxonomic record, a protein
structure, or a PubMed abstract, can be linked to Web resources external to NCBI via LinkOut.
The LinkOut homepage contains up-to-date documentation about LinkOut. The page that lists
LinkOut resources associated with a given record can be accessed in a variety of ways (Figures
The NCBI Handbook

1–3). In the case of PubMed, the full-text article and other resources related to the abstract
being viewed may be accessed directly by icon buttons above the abstract (Figure 2). The
LinkOut display can be customized by using the LinkOut preferences in the Cubby.
The NCBI Handbook
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The LinkOut display can be accessed by selecting LinkOut from a PubMed record (top panel), from
other Entrez databases (middle panel), or from the Display list (lower panel)
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

From PubMed, the links to the full text of research articles are also managed by LinkOut and can
be accessed through an icon from PubMed Abstracts, highlighted here in purple, as well as from
the associated list of LinkOut resources in Figure 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Links to external resources are listed in the LinkOut Display of an Entrez record

How Does LinkOut Work?

Design Overview
The URLs to LinkOut resources are all provided by the person or organization that owns or
created the resource. Links can be provided in any URL syntax, and providers of links may
choose as much or as little access to their resource as they wish. Providers use one format to
submit links to all Entrez databases.

LinkOut is in itself an Entrez database that holds all the linking information to external
The NCBI Handbook

resources. The separation of the data records (e.g., PubMed abstracts) from the external linking
information (e.g., URLs to journal articles on a publisher's Web site) enables both the external
link providers and NCBI to manage linking in a flexible manner. This means that if links to
external resources change, such as in the case of a Web site redesign, this will not affect the
Entrez database records, and linking information can be updated as frequently as necessary.

The LinkOut database contains information on the relationship between a link and all of the
applicable unique Entrez ID numbers (UIDs). By taking advantage of the interconnectivity
among Entrez nodes, the linking information is presented seamlessly and efficiently.

LinkOut DTD and XML Files

LinkOut information is submitted in XML, defined by the LinkOut Document Type Definition
(DTD).

Linking information is supplied in two elements: the Provider element, which specifies
The NCBI Handbook

information about a link provider; and the LinkSet element, which describes information about
the link. Each element should be submitted to NCBI in a separate file. Identity files contain
the Provider element, and Resource files contain the LinkSet element.

The Identity file is always called providerinfo.xml. It describes the identity of a provider,
including an ID (ProviderId) and an abbreviated name (NameAbbr) assigned by NCBI, the
provider's name, and other general information about the provider. There should be only one
providerinfo.xml file for each provider (see Box 1 for an example of an Identity file).

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Box 1
Example of an identity file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE Provider PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN" "LinkOut.dtd">
<Provider>
<ProviderId>777</ProviderId>
<Name>WebDatabase Co.</Name>
<NameAbbr>WebDB</NameAbbr>
<SubjectType>gene/protein/disease-specific</SubjectType>
<Attribute>registration required</Attribute>
<Url>http://www.webdatabase.com</Url>
<IconUrl>http://www.webdatabase.com/images/webdb.gif</IconUrl>
The NCBI Handbook

<Brief>On-line publisher of biomedical databases and other Web

resources</Brief>
</Provider>

Identity File Elements

Provider: root element of the identity file.
ProviderId: unique ID assigned by NCBI.
Name: full name of the resource provider.
NameAbbr: short, one-word name of the provider assigned by NCBI. May only include
alpha and numeric characters; spaces and special characters such as hyphens are not
allowed.
SubjectType, Attribute: descriptions of the resources and relationship of the provider to
the resources listed in the resource file. SubjectType and Attribute values appearing in the
The NCBI Handbook

identity file will apply to all of the resources listed by that provider.
Url: URL of the provider's Web site, used in the LinkOut Providers list in Cubby.
IconUrl: logo of the provider, used to display the link from Entrez records.
Brief: short (up to 256 characters) description of the provider.

The Resource file, which contains the LinkSet information, specifies a set of Entrez records
with a valid Entrez query, a specific rule to build the link to an external resource, and description
of the resource using the SubjectType, Attribute, and UrlName fields. There is no standard for
naming the LinkSet files, except that they must use the .xml extension. There may be any
number of LinkSet files associated with a ProviderId. (See Box 2 for an example of a Resource
file.)

Box 2
Example of a resource file
The NCBI Handbook

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE LinkSet PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN" "LinkOut.dtd"
[<!ENTITY icon.url "http://www.webdatabase.com/images/webdb.gif">
<!ENTITY base.url "http://www.webdatabase.com/cgi-bin/elegans?">]>
<LinkSet>

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

<Link>
<LinkId>1</LinkId>
<ProviderId>777</ProviderId>
<IconUrl>&icon.url;</IconUrl>
<ObjectSelector>
<Database>Nucleotide</Database>
<ObjectList>
<Query>Caenorhabditis elegans [orgn]</Query>
</ObjectList>
</ObjectSelector>
<ObjectUrl>
<Base>&base.url;</Base>
<Rule>an_lookup=&lo.pacc;</Rule>
<UrlName>Caenorhabditis elegans</UrlName>
The NCBI Handbook

<SubjectType>organism-specific</SubjectType>
</ObjectUrl>
</Link>
</LinkSet>

Resource File Elements

LinkSet: the root element of the resource file.
Link: an element that describes a specific set of resources grouped together by access
characteristics or for convenience. A resource file may have multiple Link elements.
LinkId: an identifier assigned by the provider for its own reference. It may be any character
string. Each Link should have a unique LinkId within each LinkSet or file.
ProviderId: the identifier number assigned to the provider by NCBI and listed in the
providerinfo.xml file.
IconUrl: the URL to the icon that will be displayed on the PubMed Citation and Abstract
The NCBI Handbook

Displays.
ObjectSelector: an element containing sub-elements in which providers will specify which
Entrez records are being linked from by a <Link> element.
Database: a sub-element of <ObjectSelector>. Databases available for linking include:
PubMed, Protein, Nucleotide, Genome, Structure, PopSet, Taxonomy, and OMIM.
ObjectList: a sub-element of <ObjectSelector> containing either the <Query> or
<ObjectID> that specifies the Entrez records from which the resource will be linked.
Query: a sub-element of <ObjectList> that contains any valid Entrez search, used to select
the Entrez records being linked from.
ObjId: a sub-element of <ObjectList> that contains an Entrez record unique identifier
(UID).
ObjUrl: an element that contains the necessary information for the Entrez system to
The NCBI Handbook

construct URLs to link to the provider's resources.

Base: a sub-element of <ObjUrl> that is the base of the URL for the provider's records.
Rule: a sub-element of <ObjUrl> that specifies the construction of the remainder of the
URL, based upon the specification of systems where the resources reside.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

UrlName: a short (two- or three-word) description of the link. This may be used when
multiple links are available for a single Entrez record. This may also be used if the allowed
terms in SubjectType and Attribute cannot meet the need of a provider.
SubjectType, Attribute: sub-elements of <ObjectUrl>, used to describe the subject(s) of
the provider's resources, barriers (if any) to using the resources, and relationship of the
provider to the resources listed in the resource file. The SubjectType(s) and Attribute(s)
will be applied to the resources provided within a <Link>.

Terms used in SubjectType and Attribute elements are controlled to describe LinkOut resources
in a systematic manner. This is because resources are presented to users by SubjectType on
the LinkOut display page (and within the Cubby system), making it easier to browse and access
available resources. Attributes can be used to describe the nature of a LinkOut resource (i.e.,
whether the resource requires a subscription or registration to access the content). A short text
string may be used in the UrlName element to describe a resource. UrlName is typically used
The NCBI Handbook

when the allowed SubjectType and Attribute terms cannot describe the resource adequately or
when multiple links are available from one provider for a single Entrez record.

XML File Processing and Indexing

All links from Entrez are generated on a daily basis so that new or modified Entrez records
will have accurate LinkOut resources connected to them. Once a day, all LinkOut files are
parsed according to the LinkOut DTD, and the LinkOut database is rebuilt, relating the Entrez
UIDs with the link information specified in the LinkSet XML files.

A LinkOut record consists of a link and the associated information, including its URL and all
descriptive terms (SubjectType, Attribute, and UrlName) pertaining to the link. The Entrez
UIDs applicable to the link are indexed to associate this information to the corresponding Entrez
databases. As explained in Chapter 15, LinkOut information is interconnected with all related
Entrez records.
The NCBI Handbook

LinkOut Filters
To facilitate search and retrieval of LinkOut resources, there are a number of filters in the
LinkOut-enabled Entrez databases. These filters, although not part of the LinkOut database,
use the result generated in the LinkOut indexing process.

The filters are all prefixed with lo. Filters are available for all allowable SubjectType and
Attribute terms and the NameAbbr of a provider. Some examples include:
• loprov LinkOut Provider
• loattr LinkOut Attribute
• losubj LinkOut SubjectType
• loall all LinkOut resources in an Entrez database
To use these filters to retrieve a set of Entrez records with LinkOut resources, the filter term
can be entered as a search. For example, in PubMed, searching
The NCBI Handbook

“loattrfull text online”[Filter]

will retrieve all records with LinkOut resources that have an attribute “full-text online”. The
Preview/Index section in PubMed can also be used to select LinkOut filters by first selecting
Filter and then typing in “lo” and selecting Index to browse through all of the filters related
to LinkOut.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Guides for LinkOut Providers

LinkOut resources should be directly relevant to specific subjects of the Entrez records to which
they will be linked, thus providing further research resources for Entrez users. The information
and its delivery system should be of high quality and must not, through typographic or factual
errors, omissions, or other flaws or inconsistencies, mislead, hinder, or frustrate the research
efforts of Entrez users. The resources should be easy to use and navigate. Resources from
professional societies, government agencies, educational institutions, or individuals and
organizations that have received grants from major funding organizations are preferred.

Participation in LinkOut is voluntary. Providers need to submit two types of files to describe
the LinkOut resources, Identity files and Resource files (see Boxes 1 and 2). These files include
the necessary information for the Entrez system to construct an appropriate URL to access
specific resources.
The NCBI Handbook

A list of Frequently Asked Questions is available to address questions that potential LinkOut
providers may have. Current lists of LinkOut providers can also be browsed.

Submission Procedures
Step 1. Initial Contact. A prospective provider can write to [email protected],
indicating interest in creating links from Entrez records to the providers' Web-accessible online
resources. Please include the name, email address, and phone number of an individual who
will act as a designated contact. The email should also include a LinkOut Identity file
(providerinfo.xml) based on the specifications described above.

Step 2. File Evaluation. NCBI staff will evaluate the resources before a ProviderId and
NameAbbr are assigned. NCBI will also provide assistance with setting up an appropriate
Resource file to describe the LinkOut resources.

Step 3. File Submission. An FTP account will be assigned to a provider for submission. Files
The NCBI Handbook

must have been validated by the LinkOut Validation utility before uploading. Providers may
transfer new versions of current files or add new Resource files at their own discretion.
Providers are responsible for keeping their files current and valid. Links in Entrez databases
are regenerated each day based on the files in each provider's directory; therefore, providers
must delete obsolete files from their holdings directory.

Step 4. Representation in Entrez. Once a provider's LinkOut files are processed, the resources
described in the file will be available in the LinkOut display of a relevant Entrez record as
described in the above section, How Is LinkOut Represented in Entrez?. In PubMed, publishers
of the abstract can choose to display a “button” on the Abstract and Citation displays of the
PubMed record by adding the parameter “holding=NameAbbr” to the basic PubMed URL. For
example, to activate the icon of WebDatabase Co, the URL would be provided as:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=WebDB

Furthermore, multiple NameAbbr parameters may be used in a URL to activate more than one
The NCBI Handbook

icon. For example, to display icons for both WebDB and MyDB, the following URL should
be provided:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=WebDB,MyDB

A provider's icon can be activated if the provider is selected from the LinkOut Preferences in
Cubby.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

All access restrictions will still apply. For example, if access to a database is limited by the
user IP address, access will only be allowed via computers within an approved IP range; if
access is password protected, the password must still be entered.

Detailed Guides
Interested parties can consult the following guides for more details:
• LinkOut and Non-Bibliographic Resources – written for providers of general LinkOut
resources in all Entrez databases.
• LinkOut and Publisher Holdings – written for publishers and others that provide full-
text links to PubMed records.
• LinkOut and Library Holdings – written for libraries to indicate information about their
electronic full-text subscription and print holdings.
The NCBI Handbook

Auxiliary Tools
A number of tools are available to facilitate participation in LinkOut:
• Library LinkOut Files Submission Utility utility developed for Libraries to generate
and manage their LinkOut files. Libraries simply check off their electronic journal
collections from a list of journals that participate in LinkOut. With this utility, libraries
can provide correct holdings information easily, and staff do not have to construct
LinkOut files by hand.
• LinkOut File Validation utility to be used by providers of links to parse their LinkOut
files, ensuring the accuracy of the files before submission. Besides validating the file
syntax against the LinkOut DTD, this tool will ensure that only allowable SubjectType
and Attribute terms have been provided.
Additional tools are being developed to assist other groups of providers. Interested parties can
subscribe to announcement lists described in Communicating with LinkOut Providers (next
section) to be informed of new developments.
The NCBI Handbook

Communicating with LinkOut Providers

LinkOut resource providers can communicate with NCBI's LinkOut team in a number of ways.
Users and providers can write to [email protected] to ask questions about LinkOut.
There are also three announcement lists where development related to LinkOut will be
communicated to link providers:
1 Linkout-news is for general announcements on LinkOut.
2 Library-linkout is for announcements on development related to library LinkOut
participants.
3 Tax-linkout is for announcements relevant to linking to taxonomic resources on the
Web.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) Project

[Chapter 18]

Kim Pruitt
Tatiana Tatusova
Donna Maglott

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

The Reference Sequence (RefSeq) database is a non-redundant collection of richly annotated DNA,
RNA, and protein sequences from diverse taxa. The collection includes sequences from plasmids,
organelles, viruses, archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. Each RefSeq represents a single, naturally
occurring molecule from one organism. The goal is to provide a comprehensive, standard dataset
that represents sequence information for a species. It should be noted, though, that RefSeq has been
built using data from public archival databases only.
RefSeq biological sequences (also known as RefSeqs) are derived from GenBank records but differ
in that each RefSeq is a synthesis of information, not an archived unit of primary research data.
Similar to a review article in the literature, a RefSeq represents the consolidation of information by
a particular group at a particular time. RefSeqs are available without restriction and can be retrieved
in several different ways such as: searching NCBI's databases including Nucleotide, Protein, Gene,
and Map Viewer; searching with a sequence via BLAST; doing an FTP download; or through links
from other NCBI resources including Gene, Map Viewer, and PubMed.
The NCBI Handbook

Introduction
The goal of the NCBI RefSeq project is to provide an accurate, non-redundant, and
comprehensive collection of naturally occurring DNA, RNA, and protein molecules for major
organisms. The collection explicitly connects nucleotide and protein sequences that are related.
Ideally, all molecule types will be available for each well-studied organism; however, because
the state of public sequence data varies from genome to genome, the level of available
information for different organisms at any given time also varies. Intermediate records are
provided for some organisms when the genomic sequence is not complete. Although
rearrangements and mutations do occur naturally, the goal is to represent sequence standards
that are considered to be the predominant "normal" version of the sequence.

RefSeq provides a non-redundant framework of information to facilitate database searches,

whether they are searched via genomic location, sequence, or text annotation. RefSeq
represents an objective and experimentally verifiable definition of non-redundancy by
providing one example of each natural biological molecule per organism. The collection may
The NCBI Handbook

include alternatively spliced transcripts that share some exons, identical proteins expressed
from alternatively spliced transcripts, paralogs, and homologs. Additional records are provided
to represent alternate haplotypes or strains for some organisms.

RefSeq is unique in providing a large, multi-species, curated sequence database that explicitly
links chromosome, transcript, and protein information that establishes a baseline for integrating
a large body of diverse data including sequence, genetic, expression, and functional
information into a single, consistent framework with a uniform set of conventions and
standards. RefSeq is substantially based on sequence records submitted to public archival
databases. Hereafter, the shorter term "GenBank" (Chapter 1) is used to indicate the full set of
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

archival sequence data that is submitted to, and redistributed by, the three collaborating
databases; the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the DNA Data Bank of Japan
(DDBJ), and GenBank. Note that although based upon GenBank, RefSeq is distinct from
GenBank and is not included in the GenBank database. GenBank is an archive of sequences
and annotations supplied by original authors and cannot be altered by others. RefSeq differs
from GenBank in the same way that a review article differs from a related collection of primary
research articles on the same subject. Each RefSeq represents a synthesis by a person or group
of the primary information that was generated and submitted by others. Other organizing
principles or standards of judgment are possible, which is why the work is attributed to the
synthesizing "editors". The RefSeq dataset is curated on an ongoing basis by collaborating
groups and by NCBI staff. Sequence records are presented in a standard format and subjected
to computational validation. The GenBank source of the RefSeq record, curation status, and
attribution to the curation group are also indicated.

RefSeq standards support genome annotation, gene characterization, mutation analysis,

The NCBI Handbook

expression studies, and polymorphism discovery. The RefSeq collection supports the
following:
• easy identification of sequence standards for genomes, transcripts, or proteins
• genome annotation
• comparative genomics
• reduction of redundancy in clustering approaches
• provides a foundation for unambiguous association of functional information (supports
navigation)
Database Content: Background
The September 2006 RefSeq collection includes sequences from more than 3,700 distinct
taxonomic identifiers, ranging from viruses to bacteria to eukaryotes. It represents
chromosomes, organelles, plasmids, viruses, transcripts, and more than 2,800,000 proteins.
The NCBI Handbook

Every sequence has a stable accession number, a version number, and an integer identifier (gi)
assigned to it. Outdated versions are always available if a sequence is updated. RefSeq records
can be distinguished from GenBank records by the inclusion of an underscore (“_”) in the
accession identifier. The RefSeq accession prefix has an implied meaning in terms of the type
of molecule it represents. Table 1 indicates the types of sequence molecules and the
corresponding RefSeq accession number formats. See also the RefSeq website.

Updates
RefSeq updates are provided daily. These include records added to the collection and records
updated to reflect sequence or annotation changes, including complete re-annotation of a
genome. New and updated records are made available in Entrez and BLAST databases as soon
as possible. The FTP site also provides daily update information (see below).

Flat File Format and Annotated Features

RefSeq records appear similar in format to the GenBank records from which they are derived.
The NCBI Handbook

Attributes novel to RefSeqs include a unique accession prefix followed by an underscore (Table
1), and a COMMENT field that indicates the RefSeq status and the source of the sequence
information (Figures 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D). Some RefSeq records may include feature
annotations or database cross-references (dbxref) that are not seen in the underlying GenBank
record. New annotation is provided by computation and by manual curation. For example,
nucleotide variation, STS, and tRNA features are computed for a subset of RefSeq entries using
the data available in dbSNP (Chapter 5), UniSTS, and through tRNA-scan prediction (Lowe

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

et al.). RefSeq proteins also report on conserved domains computed by NCBI's Conserved
Domain Database (Chapter 3) and protein modification sites that were identified by the Human
Protein Reference Database (HPRD). Other nucleotide and protein features, publications, and
comments may be added by collaborating groups or NCBI staff (see Box 2).

Assembling and Maintaining the RefSeq Collection

Summary
The RefSeq database is the result of data extraction from GenBank, curation, and computation,
combined with extensive collaboration with authoritative groups. Each molecule is annotated
as accurately as possible with the organism name, strain (or breed, ecotype, cultivar, or isolate),
gene symbol for that organism, and informative protein name. Collaborations with authoritative
groups outside of NCBI provide a variety of information ranging from curated sequence data,
nomenclature, feature annotations, and links to external organism-specific resources. When no
collaboration has been established, the NCBI staff assembles the data from GenBank. Each
The NCBI Handbook

record has a comment, indicating the level of curation that it has received (Table 2), and
attribution of the collaborating group. Thus, a RefSeq record can include either an essentially
unchanged, validated copy of the original GenBank record or corrected or additional
information that has been added by collaborators or experts at NCBI.

In cases when a molecule is represented by multiple sequences for an organism in GenBank,

an effort is made by NCBI staff to select the "best" sequence to be presented as a RefSeq. The
goal is to avoid known mutations, sequencing errors, cloning artifacts, and erroneous
annotation. RefSeqs identified with a problem of this type are corrected. Sequences are
validated to confirm that the genomic sequence corresponding to an annotated mRNA feature
matches the mRNA sequence record, and that coding region features really can be translated
into the corresponding protein sequence.

Working groups using distinct process pipelines compile the RefSeq collection for different
organisms. RefSeq records are provided via several distinct approaches including:
The NCBI Handbook

• collaboration
• computational genome annotation pipeline
• curation by NCBI staff
• extraction from GenBank

Collaboration
RefSeq welcomes collaborations with authoritative groups outside NCBI that are willing to
provide sequences, nomenclature, annotation, or links to phenotypic or organism-specific
resources. The RefSeq feedback form can be used to provide corrections or to initiate
collaboration. For some species, the RefSeq collection is curated entirely by a collaborating
authoritative group that provides both the sequences and annotation. For others, most notably
the human and mouse RefSeq collections, there have been numerous collaborations with
individual scientists, for either specific genes or complete gene families. Other collaborations
may be over a set of organisms. For example, a Viral Genome Advisory group has been
The NCBI Handbook

established to support curation of the viral RefSeq collection. Thus, RefSeq records may
contain information provided by an external authoritative source and/or analyses and curation
at NCBI. The collaborating group is identified on RefSeq records. Table 3 lists some examples
of annotated genomes provided by this method. Also see the RefSeq website.

If RefSeq records are supplied by a collaborating group, processing may be automated in that
data are periodically downloaded, validated to detect errors, and modified to add such

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

annotation as cross-references to Entrez Gene. The validation process checks for logical
conflicts in the annotation and makes small changes to format the submission as a RefSeq
record. In such cases, NCBI does not directly curate the annotation data or make sequence
changes; conflicts or problems that are identified either by the validation process or received
by email from researchers are reported back to the submitting group. As the collaborating group
supplies updates, changes are reflected in the RefSeq collection for that organism.

Computational Genome Annotation Pipeline

NCBI computes annotation of genomic sequence data for some genomes including some
microbial species, human, mouse, rat, cow, chimpanzee, dog, zebrafish, and honey bee. The
annotation pipeline is automated and yields genomic, transcript, and protein RefSeq records.
Names annotated on the transcript and protein products are based on sequence similarity.
Annotation data are refreshed periodically, and records that are generated from this process
flow are not subject to individual incremental updates or manual curation (see Table 1; see
The NCBI Handbook

Chapter 14 for more information on the eukaryotic genome annotation pipeline). For some
species (including human), records may be provided by a mixture of methods. In other words,
there may be a set of curated transcript and protein records in addition to a set of records that
were generated computationally. RefSeq records that are processed by NCBI's pipeline are
displayed in the NCBI Map Viewer (Chapter 20), included in Entrez Gene, and are also
available in the main Entrez sequence databases.

Curation by NCBI Staff

A portion of the RefSeq dataset is supported by NCBI curation staff. This subset includes viral,
vertebrate, and some invertebrate organisms. Most bacterial, plant, and fungal records are
provided either by collaboration or by processing the annotated genome data submitted to
GenBank; however, a small number of bacterial genomes are annotated and curated by NCBI
staff. Viral genomes are curated in consultation with a viral board of advisors.

Curation of Viral, Mitochondrial, and Bacterial Records

The NCBI Handbook

The RefSeq records curated manually at NCBI are annotated with a status of REVIEWED or
VALIDATED in the RefSeq comment block (see Table 5). For example, viral genomes are re-
annotated using GeneMarkS in collaboration with Mark Borodovsky's Bioinformatics Group
at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The GeneMarkS results are then manually reviewed
by NCBI staff. Viral annotation also relies on an established Viral Genome Advisors group
and other experts. For example, the HIV-1 RefSeq was curated by NCBI Staff in collaboration
with the authors of the book Retroviruses. The NCBI curators expanded the mature peptide
annotation for several viruses, including the poliovirus and hepatitis C, based on observations
reported in the literature that had not been included in a GenBank submission. Metazoan
mitochondrial records are curated in accordance with established protein and gene
nomenclature.

Curation of Vertebrate and Invertebrate Records

Curation of higher eukaryotic organisms is primarily focused on the mammalian genomes,
especially the human and mouse. The RefSeq process flow for these organisms provides
The NCBI Handbook

transcripts, proteins, and some genomic regions. Records of some genomic regions are
provided to facilitate genome-wide annotation and may represent gene clusters or single genes
or pseudogenes. Processing integrates the official nomenclature and other information
including alternate names, Gene Ontology (GO) terms, and GeneRIFs available in Entrez
Gene. Multiple collaborations support the collection of this descriptive information (Box 1;
see also Chapter 19).

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

Sequences enter the RefSeq curation process flow by a combination of computational analysis,
collaboration, and in-house curation. As illustrated in Figure 2, generation of the initial RefSeq
record is dependent on identifying a representative sequence for a gene. New genes and
sequence data are added to the collection by collaborators and NCBI-based analyses to mine
information from UniGene, cDNA alignments, and GenBank (Box 1). Quality assessment
(QA) processes are executed regularly to flag questionable data for review. This QA checks
for errors and conflicts in nomenclature, sequence similarity and genomic placement, and
potential cloning errors (e.g., chimeras) and leverages data from other NCBI resources
including HomoloGene, Map Viewer, and GenBank related sequences.

Once sequence data are unambiguously associated with a GeneID, the data may be propagated
into a RefSeq record. The completeness of the sequence information and the category of the
gene (e.g., protein coding, pseudogene) determine whether a RefSeq will be made, and if so,
of what type (DNA, RNA, mRNA plus protein). Reviewed RefSeq records are not made for
transposable elements or those loci for which the product type is uncertain (e.g., protein coding
The NCBI Handbook

or not). Also, a RefSeq may not be provided when the associated data are known to be
incomplete. For example, if accessions for a protein-coding locus are annotated to indicate that
the protein is a partial sequence, then automatic processing to provide the RefSeq transcript
and protein does not occur. It should be noted, however, that the RefSeq collection does include
partial transcripts and proteins that are provided by collaborating groups or when the RefSeq
is based on annotated whole-genome submissions in GenBank.

RefSeq processing for non-protein-coding RNA loci uses the longest defining transcript record
that has been associated with the GeneID. For non-transcribed loci (such as non-transcribed
pseudogenes), the RefSeq record is often derived from a defined region of a large genomic
sequence with no indication of exon substructure. Curation of these types of records is minimal
because the current focus is on curation of protein-coding loci; however, these records provide
an important reagent for the computational annotation pipeline and support annotation of non-
protein-coding genes that might otherwise be missed or misrepresented as a predicted protein-
coding gene. Other records are provided to represent larger genomic regions including gene
The NCBI Handbook

clusters, genes requiring rearrangement to express a product (immunoglobulins and T-cell

receptors), and haplotypes with known differences in gene content. These genomic region
records are annotated by the curation staff, often in collaboration with scientific experts, and
are not provided by automatic processing.

For protein-coding loci, an initial "seed" sequence is selected from the set of accessions
associated with a given GeneID based on protein and transcript lengths. Sequences that are
annotated as partial proteins are not considered. Because we have only a subset of sequence
data stored for a GeneID, an automated process checks for additional sequence data that may
be a more complete representative of the transcript; the selected seed sequence is used as a
query sequence for automated BLAST analysis, and if a longer mRNA is identified (with an
identical coding sequence), then that sequence is used to provide the RefSeq record. This stage
of the process associates additional accessions with the GeneID and also includes detection of
conflicts and problems, including sequence-to-locus association ambiguity and vector
contamination.
The NCBI Handbook

If data conflicts are identified for the GenBank accession used to generate the RefSeq record,
then it is resolved before the RefSeq can become public. The RefSeq record is generated using
the sequence data from the GenBank accession, and the annotation data from the in-house
version of the Entrez Gene database. In addition, RefSeq records are subject to programmatic
validation to identify annotation format errors and to provide annotation in a more consistent
format. Entrez Gene information including the GeneID, cross-references to other databases,
official nomenclature, alias symbols, alternate descriptive names, map location, and additional

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

citations, including those submitted as GeneRIFs, are applied to the records. Records at this
stage have a PROVISIONAL, PREDICTED, or INFERRED status.

RefSeq staff prioritizes reviewing problems submitted by email or identified by in-house QA

analysis. For example, analysis is carried out to identify sequences that include repeats, have
poor-quality splice sites, align poorly to a high quality genome, have no similar proteins, are
very short or very long, or that are extremely similar to sequences associated with a different
GeneID. Review of problem sets may result in updating a RefSeq record, providing new RefSeq
records, modifying sequence-to-gene associations, merging Entrez Gene records, or
discontinuing a RefSeq, GeneID, or both. A RefSeq is suppressed if it is found to represent a
transcribed repeat element, to be derived from the wrong organism (i.e., the GenBank sequence
it was based on does not have an accurate organism annotation), or to not represent a "gene".
Records that have been determined to represent an incomplete sequence, such as a partial
protein sequence or incompletely spliced transcript, are temporarily suppressed until more
complete sequence data can be represented in the RefSeq record. An Entrez query will still
The NCBI Handbook

retrieve a suppressed record, with a disclaimer appearing on the query result document
summary (Figure 3a), but the suppressed record is not included in the BLAST databases, nor
in the calculation of related sequences or the BLink display (BLink are pre-computed protein
BLAST results) or in RefSeq FTP releases. If a RefSeq is found to be redundant with another
public RefSeq, then one is retained and the other becomes a secondary accession number
(Figure 3b). If the sequences were associated with two different GeneIDs, then the GeneIDs
are merged so that in Entrez Gene, a query with either of the original GeneIDs will retrieve the
remaining single record.

Once problems are resolved, the curators review sequence alignments, the published literature,
and internal and external databases, with the aim of finding the best representative nucleotide
and protein sequence and annotation available at that time. The resulting information is
propagated to both the RefSeq sequence record and to the Entrez Gene database. Box 2 lists
additional detailed information concerning the type of errors corrected and the information
added by the manual curation process. Review of individual transcript and protein records is
The NCBI Handbook

carried out primarily by NCBI staff, but some sequences and annotations are provided by
collaboration. The curation process also provides additional sequence records to represent
splice variants when sufficient information about their full-length composition is available.
Records that have undergone manual curation, either by NCBI staff or a collaborating group,
have a validated or reviewed status. Note that for many genes, intermediate levels of manual
curation may correct sequence miss-associations, to base the RefSeq on a more optimal
GenBank record and to provide additional data to Entrez Gene before full review of a RefSeq
sequence record.

We welcome input from the research community to improve the quality of RefSeqs. Interested
parties are invited to contact us by sending an email to the NCBI Help Desk
([email protected]) or by using our feedback form. See also the RefSeq website.

Extraction from GenBank

RefSeq representation of complete genome data for prokaryotes, organelles, and some
The NCBI Handbook

eukaryotic genomes is provided by propagating whole-genome sequence data and annotation

available in GenBank to a RefSeq record.

In general, these RefSeq records undergo an initial automated validation step before being
released. The resulting record is a copy of a GenBank sequence, but processing may result in
some corrections and more consistent feature annotation. The RefSeq record could then differ
from the original GenBank record in details of the feature annotation format, names,
publications, and cross-references to other databases including Entrez Gene. Of particular note

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

is that the transcript is often provided as a separate RefSeq record for eukaryotic organisms.
This is not done for GenBank genome submissions, which instantiate only the protein
separately.

This process flow is supported by the Entrez Genome and Genome Project databases. The
Entrez Genome Project database tracks whole-genome sequencing projects, other types of
large-scale projects, and provides an overview of the organism as well as links to data and other
resources. As new genome sequences are submitted to GenBank, the general status of that
project is tracked in the Genome Project database. When the sequence is public for organelles
or prokaryotic projects, the corresponding RefSeq record is generated automatically.
Processing of eukaryotic genomes is more complex, largely because the volume of data is
significant, and so these are processed by programs that are run manually.

The resulting genomic RefSeq data is represented in the Entrez Genome database, which
represents the RefSeq collection of complete, or nearly complete, genomes and chromosomes
The NCBI Handbook

that are generated at NCBI by GenBank extraction, collaboration, or the computational

annotation pipeline. The Genome database is divided into several major taxonomic groups
including: Archaea, Bacteria, Eukaryota, Viroids, Viruses, and Plasmids. The Entrez Genome
website includes custom displays, analysis, and tools for prokaryotic and some eukaryotic
genomes (see Table 4).

RefSeq record processing of GenBank genomic data falls into four primary categories:
chromosomes, microbial genomes, small complete genomes, and viruses.

Chromosomes
RefSeq records in this category are usually submitted directly to Entrez Genomes as a complete
chromosome sequence representing an assembly of individual clones that are themselves
available in GenBank. For some genomes, such as Drosophila melanogaster, the RefSeq
representation uses a unit of interest to the research community and limits size to a chromosome
arm rather than the complete chromosome. RefSeq records may also be available for some
The NCBI Handbook

genomes that are not yet fully sequenced but for which complete sequence is available for
individual chromosomes. These records may be annotated by the NCBI computational
annotation pipeline, or they may be curated by an organism-specific collaborating group and
undergo NCBI validation before being released.

Microbial Genomes
Similar to chromosomes, complete microbial genomes are submitted to GenBank, which are
then automatically processed to create a RefSeq record. Microbial RefSeq records are not
curated on an organism-by-organism basis but are subject to additional automatic validation
and computational analysis. The vast increase in microbial genomes over the last few years
has enabled the RefSeq group to build a system for the curation of protein clusters to unify
protein and gene nomenclature across genomes. The manually curated annotation for the
cluster of proteins is then applied to all complete microbial genomes that contain the protein
of interest. Additional tools are used for the prediction and analysis of both coding regions and
other genes such as tRNAs (tRNAscan-SE).
The NCBI Handbook

Small Complete Genomes

Smaller complete genomic sequences, including organelles, plasmids, and viruses are based
on single GenBank records. Automatic processing scans GenBank daily for complete genome
updates and new submissions; identified records are candidates for a complete genome RefSeq.
These records are manually evaluated to make the final decision; if more than one genomic
sequence is available for the genome, then only one is selected to become the RefSeq standard.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

This selection takes into account various factors including the level of annotation, strain
information, and community input.

Access and Retrieval

RefSeq records can be accessed by direct query, BLAST, FTP download, or indirectly through
links provided from several NCBI resources including Gene, Genome, Genome Project, and
Map Viewer. In addition, RefSeq records are included in some computed resources, and
therefore links may be found from those pages to individual RefSeq records. For example, the
RefSeq collection is included in HomoloGene, UniGene, Clusters of Orthologous Groups of
proteins (COG; Chapter 22) analysis, and in Conserved Domain Database (CDD; Chapter 3)
analysis to identify proteins with similar domain architecture. Some links from Entrez
databases to RefSeq records are based on Entrez Gene associations (e.g., links from OMIM;
Chapter 7), whereas others are based on sequence similarity or RefSeq annotation content
including links from PubMed. Links to RefSeq records may be found in the following
The NCBI Handbook

resources:
• BLAST results (Chapter 16)
• BLink (pre-computed protein blast results)
• Bookshelf
• CDD (Chapter 3)
• dbSNP (Chapter 5)
• Entrez (Chapter 15)
• Gene (Chapter 19)
• Genome
• Genome Project
• Map Viewer (Chapter 20)
• OMIM (Chapter 7)
The NCBI Handbook

• Probe
• PubMed
• UniGene (Chapter 21)
• UniSTS
The distinct accession number format used for RefSeq records (Table 1) makes it easy to spot
links to RefSeq records from these and other NCBI resources. Several approaches to access
and retrieve RefSeq records are described below.

Entrez Query Access

RefSeq records can be retrieved by querying various databases in the Entrez system (Chapter
15). All RefSeqs can be found in the Entrez Nucleotide or Protein databases, whereas queries
in the Genome database retrieve the subset of the RefSeq collection that comprises complete
genomic molecules. Together, Genome and Gene represent the entire RefSeq collection. See
The NCBI Handbook

the RefSeq website for examples of Entrez queries. A subset is represented in Map Viewer.
The genomic RefSeq is reported in the map, and the annotations are viewed in the Genes and
Transcript maps.

Searching Nucleotide or Protein

General queries in Entrez Nucleotide or Protein databases may retrieve a mixture of GenBank
and RefSeq records. The query result display includes tabs to access specific result sets

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

including, by default, a tab to access RefSeq-specific results. Details about the subsets to report
via folder Tabs can be configured using the My NCBI interface. Alternatively, queries can be
restricted to the RefSeq collection by using the Limited to: settings (Figure 4) or by entering
a query restriction using the property fields listed in Table 6. In addition, both the Limited to:
settings and property field terms can also be used to restrict the query by type of molecule (e.g.,
DNA versus mRNA) and other parameters. See Entrez Help and the RefSeq Query help page
for further details.

Searching Genome and the Genome Project

RefSeq records in the Genome or Genome Project databases can be retrieved using an accession
number for a complete genomic molecule (NC_ accession prefix) or organism name. The
Genome Project database can also be queried using the property restriction “srcdb_refseq
[prop]”.
The NCBI Handbook

Searching Gene
The majority of the RefSeq collection is represented in Entrez Gene, a gene-centered database
(Chapter 19); RefSeq records representing assembled environmental samples (with an NS_
accession prefix) are not included in Gene but can be found in the Genome and Nucleotide
databases. Additional organisms, records, and associated data continue to be added to Entrez
Gene and RefSeq over time as new data become available.

Genes with specific RefSeq accessions can be retrieved by querying with the RefSeq accession
number. A more general query to retrieve Genes with associated RefSeq records can be carried
out by using the property "srcdb_refseq". For example, a query can be formed to find members
of a gene family that share a common name root for which there are RefSeq records (for
example, “abcc*[sym] AND srcdb_refseq_known[prop]”). RefSeq to Gene connections are
also provided by direct links; RefSeq records include a link to the Entrez Gene report page via
the GeneID dbXref link on the gene and CDS features (Figure 1C). Gene reports the RefSeq
accession numbers in the RefSeq section of the report, with links to the Nucleotide or Protein
The NCBI Handbook

records. Gene reports may also include a graphical depiction of genome annotation data as
represented in the Map Viewer resource in the Genomic regions, transcripts, and products
section, with links to Nucleotide and Protein displays. When this graphical section is provided,
an additional report is available with details about exon and intron boundaries and length. You
can change the display format from Full Report to Gene Table to access this report.

Entrez Gene query results and gene reports indicate when a RefSeq is available, with links
provided to the nucleotide and protein sequences and to related resources, including the Map
Viewer and BLink (pre-computed protein alignments) and Conserved Domain Database
(CDD). The process of RefSeq curation also expands the data available in Entrez Gene by
providing a range of information including:
• alternate names
• Enzyme Committee numbers
• gene summaries
•
The NCBI Handbook

publications
• related GenBank accessions
• transcript variant descriptions

BLAST
RefSeq transcript and protein records are included in the non-redundant nucleotide and protein
BLAST databases, and genomic sequences are included in the "chromosome" database;

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

therefore, when a query sequence matches a RefSeq record, the hit is included in the BLAST
results (see Figure 5). Accessions included in the results set, either RefSeq or GenBank, that
are associated with GeneIDs are indicated by a small blue G icon that is linked to the Gene
report. Additional organism-specific BLAST pages provide access to specific custom
databases to query against the assembled genome or other databases. The set of supported
custom databases varies by organism. These custom BLAST pages can be accessed via the
Map Viewer, Genome Project reports, or through the Genomic Biology webpage. For example,
the several species-specific genome BLAST pages provide access to query the genome
assembly, transcripts, or proteins and may include options to query against additional custom
databases such as sequence data from the Trace archive, clones, or ab initio predictions. As
illustrated in Figure 5b, BLAST results for queries against assembled genome sequence data
that are available in the Map Viewer include a button called Genome View that provides access
to a custom view in the Map Viewer, where BLAST hits are displayed in the context of the
genome.
The NCBI Handbook

FTP
RefSeq data are available in three FTP areas. Configured RefSeq BLAST databases are
available for download from the BLAST FTP site; separate databases are provided for genomic,
transcript, and protein records. Organism-specific subsets are provided in the genomes FTP
site. This area includes RefSeq records that are generated by or used in Map Viewer and Entrez
Genomes processing. The full RefSeq collection is available in the RefSeq FTP site, with the
exception of the NS_ accession series representing environmental sample records. The RefSeq
collection is provided as comprehensive bi-monthly releases in addition to daily updates for
records that are new or updated between RefSeq release cycles. The comprehensive release
provides data in multiple file formats, including flat file and fasta, as well as providing the data
organized into primary taxonomic groups in addition to the complete dataset. In addition, a
small number of subdirectories are available that provide weekly comprehensive releases of
the transcript and protein RefSeq data for organisms of high interest that have frequent updates
of curated records, such as human, mouse, and rat. Information about the RefSeq release is
documented in the RefSeq FTP site in the release-notes subdirectory; the availability of new
The NCBI Handbook

releases is announced on the RefSeq website and to subscribers of the refseq-announce email
list.

Related Reading
1.
Besemer J, Lomsadze A, Borodovski M. GeneMarkS: a self-training method for prediction of gene
starts in microbial genomes. Implications for finding sequence motifs in regulatory regions. Nucleic
Acids Res 29:2607-2618; 2001.
2.
Blake JA, Eppig JT, Richardson JE, Davisson MT. The Mouse Genome Database (MGD): expanding
genetic and genomic resources for the laboratory mouse. The Mouse Genome Database Group. Nucleic
Acids Res 28:108-111; 2000.
3.
Boguski MS, Schuler GD. ESTablishing a human transcript map. Nat Genet 10:369-371; 1995.
The NCBI Handbook

4.
Coffin JM, Hughes SH, Varmus E. Retroviruses. Plainview (NY): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Press; 1997.
5.
FlyBase Consortium. The FlyBase database of the Drosophila Genome Projects and community
literature. The FlyBase Consortium. Nucleic Acids Res 27:85-88; 1999.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

6.
Hamosh A, Scott AF, Amberger J, Valle D, McKusick VA. Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man
(OMIM). Hum Mutat 15:57-61; 2000.
7.
Lowe, T.M. & Eddy, S.R. 1997. tRNAscan-SE: a program for improved detection of transfer RNA
genes in genomic sequence. Nucl. Acids Res. 25: 955-964.
8.
Lukashin A, Borodovski M. GeneMark.hmm new solutions for gene finding. Nucleic Acids Res
26:1107-1115; 1998.
9.
Marchler-Bauer A, Panchenko AR, Shoemaker BA, Thiesse PA, Geer LY, Bryant SH. CDD: a
database of conserved domain alignments with links to domain three-dimensional structure. Nucleic
Acids Res 30:281-283; 2002.
10.
Pruitt KD, Katz KS, Sicotte H, Maglott DR. Introducing RefSeq and Entrez Gene: curated human
The NCBI Handbook

genome resources at the NCBI. Trends Genet 16:44-47; 2000.

11.
Tatusova TA, Karsch-Mizrachi I, Ostell JA. Complete genomes in WWW Entrez: data representation
and analysis. Bioinformatics 15:536-543; 1999.
12.
Twigger S, Lu J, Shimoyama M, Chen D, Pasko D, Long H, Ginster J, Chen CF, Nigam R, Kwitek
A, Eppig J, Maltais L, Maglott D, Schuler G, Jacob H, Tonellato PJ. Rat Genome Database (RGD):
mapping disease into the genome. Nucleic Acids Res 30:125-128; 2002.
13.
Westerfield M, Doerry E, Kirkpatrick AE, Douglas SA. Zebrafish informatics and the ZFIN database.
Methods Cell Biol 60:339-355; 1999.
14.
White JA, McAlpine PJ, Antonarakis S, Cann H, Eppig JT, Frazer K, Frezal J, Lancet D, Nahmias
J, Pearson P, Peters J, Scott A, Scott H, Spurr N, Talbot C Jr, Povey S. Guidelines for human gene
nomenclature (1997). HUGO Nomenclature Committee. Genomics 45:468-471; 1997.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1 A. Features of a RefSeq record. Dialog balloons indicate distinguishing features

found in different sections of a typical RefSeq record when displayed in the GenBank flat file
format.
Dialog balloons highlight a line at the top of the display that identifies the accession as part of
the RefSeq project, the distinct accession format, the inclusion of some GeneRIF functional
comments, and the tools that support customizing the flat file display.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1 B. Features of a RefSeq record. The COMMENT section also identifies a record
as part of the RefSeq project and provides information about the curation status and the primary
archival data that was used to generate the record. Additional descriptive information is
The NCBI Handbook

available in some curated records including a summary of the gene or protein function, a brief
description of the transcript variant, a notation when additional publications are available in
Entrez Gene. The PRIMARY section is provided for a sub-set of RefSeq records to delineate
additional detail about the data used to create the RefSeq record.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1 C. Features of a RefSeq record. The top portion of the FEATURES section
illustrates the inclusion of additional feature annotation that is calculated for some RefSeq
records as well as links to additional sources of information as relevant. This example illustrates
links to Entrez Gene (via the GeneID), the official human nomenclature authority HUGO Gene
Nomenclature Committee (via the HGNC ID), the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man record
(via the MIM ID), and a category of submitted links provided by the Human Protein Reference
The NCBI Handbook

Database (HPRD).
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 1 D. Features of a RefSeq record. RefSeq records may also be displayed in a graphical
format (note the link ‘Graphics’ in figure 1A). This format depicts annotated features
graphically. Details about the display can be configured using the ‘Options’ menu. Please refer
to the Graphics display Help documentation for additional information about configuring the
display (including adding a marker to highlight a residue of interest, and configuring the display
to show the sequence).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 2. RefSeq Processing Pipelines. Once sequence data are deposited in the public
archival databases, it is available for RefSeq processing. Processing pipelines include the
vertebrate curation pipeline, the computational genome annotation pipeline, and extraction
The NCBI Handbook

from GenBank. These pipelines generate new and updated RefSeq records that become
publicly available in Entrez Nucleotide, Protein, and Gene databases. (A) Once a gene is
defined and associated with sufficient sequence information in an internal curation database,
it can be pushed into the RefSeq pipeline. The RefSeq process is initiated by an automated
BLAST step, which uses the stored sequence data as a query against GenBank to identify the
longest mRNA for each locus. This initial RefSeq record has a status of provisional, predicted,
or inferred. Subsequent curation may result in a sequence or annotation update (as described
in Box 2) and a status of validated or reviewed. Records are updated if the underlying GenBank
accession number is updated or if other associated data are updated, including nomenclature,
publications, or map location. (B) Available RefSeq and GenBank data are aligned to an
assembled genome, ab initio gene prediction is carried out that uses alignment data, and an
analysis program integrates all available data to define the annotation models. New "model"
RefSeq records are generated by this pipeline. (C) When a complete, annotated genome
becomes available in GenBank, a set of corresponding RefSeq records are generated by
duplicating the GenBank submission, followed by validation and addition of cross-references
to Entrez Gene (via a dbXref citing the GeneID) and, in some cases, more informative and
The NCBI Handbook

standardized protein names.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 3. How to recognize suppressed and redundant RefSeq records. (a) A standard text
statement is included on the Entrez document summary for suppressed RefSeq records (red
arrow). (b) If redundant RefSeq records are merged, then both accession numbers appear on
The NCBI Handbook

the flat file ACCESSION line (green arrow). The first ACCESSION number listed is the
primary identifier, and all other listed accessions are "secondary" accession numbers.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 4. Using Entrez Limits to restrict a query to RefSeq. Use the highlighted menu boxes
to restrict the query to a genomic or mRNA sequence or to restrict the query to the RefSeq
collection.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Figure 5. (a) RefSeq records are included in NCBI BLAST databases. In a BLAST summary
The NCBI Handbook

list of results, the abbreviation ref identifies records that are provided by the RefSeq collection.
Accessions that are included in the NCBI resources UniGene, GEO, and Gene are linked to
those resources via the colored icons for U, E, and G, respectively. (b) The Genome View
button is provided when BLAST results can be viewed in context of the graphical Map Viewer
display.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1. The RefSeq accession number format and molecule types.

Accession prefix Molecule type Comment

AC_ Genomic Complete genomic molecule, alternate assembly

NC_ Genomic Complete genomic molecule, reference assembly

NG_ Genomic Incomplete genomic region

NT_ Genomic Contig or scaffold, clone-based or WGSa

NW_ Genomic Contig or scaffold, primarily WGSa

NS_ Genomic Environmental sequence

b
NZ_ Genomic Unfinished WGS

NM_ mRNA

NR_ RNA
The NCBI Handbook

XM_c mRNA Predicted model

XR_c RNA Predicted model

AP_ Protein Annotated on AC_ alternate assembly

NP_ Protein
c
YP_ Protein
c
XP_ Protein Predicted model
c
ZP_ Protein Predicted model, annotated on NZ_ genomic records
a Whole Genome Shotgun sequence data.
b An ordered collection of WGS for a genome.
c Computed.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2. RefSeq status codes.

Code Description

GENOME ANNOTATION The RefSeq record is provided via automated processing and is not subject to individual review or revision between
builds.

INFERRED The RefSeq record has been predicted by genome sequence analysis, but it is not yet supported by experimental
evidence. The record may be partially supported by homology data.

PREDICTED The RefSeq record has not yet been subject to individual review, and some aspect of the RefSeq record is predicted.

PROVISIONAL The RefSeq record has not yet been subject to individual review. The initial sequence-to-gene name associations
have been established by outside collaborators or NCBI staff.

REVIEWED The RefSeq record has been reviewed by NCBI staff or by a collaborator. The NCBI review process includes
assessing available sequence data and the literature. Some RefSeq records may incorporate expanded sequence and
annotation information.

VALIDATED The RefSeq record has undergone an initial review to provide the preferred sequence standard. The record has not
yet been subject to final review, at which time additional functional information may be provided.
The NCBI Handbook

WGS The RefSeq record is provided to represent a collection of whole genome shotgun sequences. These records are not
subject to individual review or revisions between genome updates.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook

Table 3. Selected examples of collaborator-contributed RefSeq records.

Organism Collaborator

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD)

Arabidopsis thaliana The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR)

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pseudomonas aeruginosa Community Annotation Project (PseudoCAP)

Caenorhabditis elegans WormBase

Drosophila melanogaster FlyBase

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook

Table 4. Selected Entrez Genome resources.

Web Page Web Site

Entrez Genome homepage http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Genome

Eukaryotes http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/leuks.cgi

Prokaryotes http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/lproks.cgi

Viral Genomes http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/VIRUSES/viruses.html

Organelle Genome Resources http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/ORGANELLES/organelles.html

Plant Genomes Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/PLANTS/PlantList.html

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 24
The NCBI Handbook

Table 5. Selected examples of REVIEWED viral, microbial, and small genomes.

RefSeq Organism

NC_003197 Salmonella typhimurium LT2

NC_003277 Salmonella typhimurium LT2 plasmid pSLT

NC_001802 Human immunodeficiency virus 1

NC_000907 Haemophilus influenzae Rd KW20

NC_004718 SARS coronavirus

The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 25
The NCBI Handbook

Table 6. Entrez queries to retrieve sets of RefSeq records.

Query Accession prefix RefSeq category retrieved

srcdb_refseq[prop] All RefSeq accessions All

srcdb_refseq_known[prop] NC_, AC_, NG_, NM_, NR_, NP_, AP_ REVIEWED, PROVISIONAL, PREDICTED, INFERRED, and
VALIDATED

srcdb_refseq_reviewed[prop] NC_, AC_,NG_, NM_, NR_, NP_, AP_ REVIEWED records

srcdb_refseq_validated[prop] NC_, NM_,NR_,NP_ VALIDATED records

srcdb_refseq_provisional[prop] NC_, AC_, NG_, NM_, NR_, NP_, AP_ PROVISIONAL records

srcdb_refseq_predicted[prop] NM_, NR_, NP_ PREDICTED records

srcdb_refseq_inferred[prop] AC_, AP_, NM_,NR_,NP_ INFERRED records

a
srcdb_refseq_model[prop] NT_, NW_, XM_, XR_, XP_, ZP_ Genome annotation model records
a Retrieves those NT_ and NW_ records that have gene annotation.
The NCBI Handbook

Box 1. Approaches used to associate sequence data with Entrez Gene loci.
Collaboration with authoritative groups including:
• FlyBase
• Human Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC)
• Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI)
• OMIM
• RATMAP
• Rat Genome Database (RGD)
• WormBase
• Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN)
• Gene Family Authorities
The NCBI Handbook

In-House Processing:
• Extraction from GenBank
• Genome Annotation pipeline
• Homology analysis
• In-house curation
• UniGene analysis

Box 2. RefSeq curation: Error correction and data addition.

The RefSeq manual curation process for eukaryotic organisms may result in correction of
errors as well as provision of additional sequence information and feature annotation, as
indicated below.
The NCBI Handbook

Curation of Sequences
Error Corrections
1 Remove chimeric sequences.
2 Remove vector and linker sequences.
3 Remove sequences annotated with incorrect organism information.
4 Resolve sequence-to-locus mis-associations.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 26
The NCBI Handbook

5 Correct apparent sequence errors as identified through sequence analysis and

personal communication; an attempt is made to reconcile sequence differences to
finished genomic sequence.
6 Modify the extent of the original GenBank CDS annotation, as determined through
sequence analysis (including homology considerations), literature review, and
personal communication.
Provide Additional Information
• Extend UTRs based on publicly available sequence data or literature review.
• Provide RefSeq with full-length CDS from a series of overlapping partial GenBank
sequences.
• Provide splice variants and corresponding protein variants.
Curation of Annotations (information added)
The NCBI Handbook

Nucleotide and Protein

• Alias symbols and names
• Brief description of transcript and protein variants
• Publications
• Summary of gene, protein function
Protein Only
• Alternate translation start sites
• Enzyme Commission number
• Mature peptide products
• Non-AUG translation start sites
• Protein domains
• Selenocysteine proteins
The NCBI Handbook

Nucleotide Only
• Indication of transcript completeness, as known
• Poly(A) signal, site
• RNA editing
• Variation features
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

Entrez Gene: A Directory of Genes

[Chapter 19]

Donna Maglott
Kim Pruitt
Tatiana Tatusova

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

A major goal of genomic sequencing projects is to identify and characterize genes. Entrez Gene (1)
has been implemented at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (2) to organize
information about genes, serving as a major node in the nexus of genomic map, sequence, expression,
protein structure, function, and homology data. Each Entrez Gene record is assigned a unique
identifier, the GeneID, that can be tracked through revision cycles. Entrez Gene records are
established for known or predicted genes, which are defined by nucleotide sequence or map position.
Not all taxa are represented, and the current scope matches that of NCBI's Reference Sequences
group (3) and NIH's Mammalian Gene Collection (4).
Entrez Gene provides several improvements over its predecessor, LocusLink (5) . These include a
broader taxonomic scope, better integration with other databases in NCBI, and enhanced options for
query and retrieval provided by NCBI's Entrez (6) system. Identifiers established by LocusLink
(known as LocusID) have been retained in Entrez Gene as the GeneID.
This chapter describes
• how data are maintained in Entrez Gene
The NCBI Handbook

• query strategies
• record content and displays
• technical information for the power user

Overview
Entrez Gene is one of the several gene-centered resources at NCBI. Others include the Gene
Expression Nervous System Atlas (GENSAT), the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) ,
HomoloGene, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), and UniGene. The taxonomic
scope of these resources differs. For example UniGene has clustered transcript information for
some species that Entrez Gene does not, and Entrez Gene has records not cross-referenced in
UniGene. Entrez Gene is solely responsible for providing the unique GeneID that is used to
identify information for genes and other types of loci.
The NCBI Handbook

On a regular basis, model organism databases and other contributing groups are checked for
novel information. If the record already exists in Entrez Gene, new information is added and
outdated information is corrected. Otherwise, a new record is created.

Entrez Gene can be considered curated because many of the contributing databases are curated.
Additionally, records in Entrez Gene may be reviewed by NCBI staff. However, Entrez Gene
does not always attempt to reconcile genes defined by various annotation pipelines that may
differ in levels of curatorial review and rules about what constitutes a gene.

Entrez Gene serves as a hub of information for databases both within and external to NCBI.
Records are processed either gene-by-gene or as part of the submission of an annotated genome
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

or chromosome. Entrez Gene identifiers, and associated names and sequence accessions,
provide a common frame of reference for many databases.

For some genomes (e.g. human, mouse, rat, chicken, dog), Entrez Gene records are updated
continuously. For other genomes, updates to Entrez Gene depend on the re-submission of
genomic sequence annotation from an external group.

Entrez Gene includes records for confirmed genes and for genes predicted by annotation
processes. The evidence for a gene can be inferred from the status of the RefSeq that defines
it (information on status definitions can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/RefSeq/
key.html - status). For example, RefSeqs that are termed as predicted or model have less
supporting evidence than those in the validated, provisional, or reviewed categories. However,
new sequence information is submitted to the public databases daily, and the status of a gene
may not reflect current knowledge. New information on related sequences can be checked from
Entrez Gene through the links to Entrez Nucleotide, Entrez Protein, and BLAST Link (BLink).
The NCBI Handbook

Entrez Gene does not claim to be comprehensive; rather, it serves as a guide to additional
information in other databases. For example, a gene can be represented by multiple sequences,
but not all are reported explicitly from Entrez Gene. Instead, connections are supplied from
Entrez Gene to Entrez Nucleotide, Entrez Protein, and Blink, where more sequences with
significant similarity can be retrieved. In addition to the multiple links to NCBI databases,
LinkOuts submitted to Entrez Gene from external databases support ready navigation to more
gene-specific information. The central functions of Entrez Gene are to establish unique
identifiers for genes that can be tracked and, in so doing, support accurate connections with
the defining sequences, nomenclature and other descriptors. With this infrastructure, it is
possible to:
• support the NCBI annotation pipeline based on placement of sequences with known
GeneIDs
• provide a species-independent frame of reference for genes and all their attributes
•
The NCBI Handbook

support identification of the genes represented by sequences in the public databases

Maintaining the Data
New Records
Records are added to Entrez Gene if any of the following conditions is met:
• A RefSeq is created for a genome that has been completely sequenced and that record
contains annotated genes. In the case of RNA viruses with polyprotein precursors,
annotated proteins are treated as equivalent to a gene.
• A recognized, genome-specific database provides information about genes (preferably
with defining sequence), mapped phenotypes, or sequences that are treated as markers
for incompletely characterized genes (e.g. expressed sequence tags and gene traps).
• The NCBI annotation pipeline identifies potential genes (models).
• A sequence submitted to public databases defines a new gene. For some genomes, the
processing in Entrez Gene depends on UniGene's clustering process to identify a single
The NCBI Handbook

representative sequence.
The minimum set of data necessary for a record in Entrez Gene, therefore, is a unique identifier
or GeneID assigned by NCBI, a preferred symbol, and any of sequence information, map
information, or nomenclature from a recognized authority.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Updating Data
Existing records are updated when new information is received. The staff of Entrez Gene
collaborates with curators of organism-specific databases, nomenclature authorities,
international annotation groups, other groups in NCBI, and other valued contributors to resolve
discrepancies and improve the data. When a record is updated, its modification date changes.
For some genomes, this may occur when the genome is re-annotated and converted into an
updated RefSeq. For others, it may occur when any information attached to a gene record is
altered. Other changes include adding, updating, or deleting sequence information, GeneRIFs,
nomenclature, publications, and key identifiers such as numbers assigned to records in
Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM numbers) and IDs from model organism databases.

Suppressing Records
From time to time it is necessary to combine Entrez Gene records or suppress ones created in
error. Current or previous records can be retrieved from Entrez Gene by the GeneID. When a
The NCBI Handbook

secondary GeneID has been replaced with another, a URL to the current record is provided.

Supplementary Information
Filters: information in other Entrez databases
Much of the power of querying Entrez Gene comes from mining its connections with other
databases. Changes in these relationships are not captured in the modification date on the Entrez
Gene record. For example, if information about new single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)
in a gene is submitted to the Single Nucleotide Polymorphism database and this information
is now connected to Entrez Gene, that change is not reflected in the modification date of the
record in Entrez Gene. In other words, a query to Entrez Gene based on records that have
connections to dbSNP (using filters, as described below in “How to query Entrez Gene”) will
return a different set of records, although there is no change in the modification date in any of
the Entrez Gene records.

Filters: LinkOut to information in non-NCBI databases

The NCBI Handbook

Databases external to NCBI's Entrez system can submit and update links at any time. Users
logged into My NCBI may elect to display any LinkOut with a standard icon. Changes in these
connections will not be reflected in the modification date on the record in Entrez Gene.

Note: Database providers are encouraged to review the documentation about supplying
LinkOuts (for more information see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/linkout/doc/
nonbiblinkout.html). This is a powerful method to attract users of Entrez Gene to your own
database.

How to Query Entrez Gene

As with all databases accessed via Entrez, records can be retrieved from Entrez Gene based
on:
• information anywhere in the record
The NCBI Handbook

• information in specified fields (Box 1)

• information on properties of the record (Box 2)
• the relationship of any record to other records in the Entrez system or on providers of
external links (filters, Box 3)
Queries can be as simple as a single word or as complex as a combination of terms qualified
by boolean operators using field restriction, properties, and filters. Several functions standard

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

to Entrez are available to help users query Entrez Gene efficiently. Descriptions of these
functions are below:
• Limits supports restricting results by combinations of species, by a value in one field,
and by the modification date on the record.
• Preview/Index provides a comprehensive list of fields, filters, and properties currently
used by Entrez Gene. It also reports the number of occurrences and values stored in
each field, filter, and property, and it allows you to combine any term by boolean
operators with existing queries. This is a key interface to test robust query strategies.
• History offers a review of recent queries and menus that can be used to combine these
queries to selected sets of interest.
• Clipboard hold records of interest for up to 8 hours.
• Details shows how a query was processed. A query can then be refined and
resubmitted.
The NCBI Handbook

• My NCBI allows users to save searches, customize filters, and schedule document
delivery.
• Entrez Utilities allows users to retrieve records in other programs based on the same
queries used interactively.
More details on using these functions are in the Entrez help document and FAQ pages.

Specificity in query results can be improved by making judicious use of fields, properties, and
filters (Boxes 1, 2 and 3). To help you decide which of these to use, think of a field as a
subcategory of information, a property as a keyword or a term that may apply to many Entrez
Gene records, and a filter as a representation of how Entrez Gene relates to other databases in
the NCBI website. To select what filter to use, it might be helpful to know that NCBI names
many filters by the pairs of names of the databases carrying common information. For Entrez
Gene, the first database name is gene. Thus the filter representing common information in
Entrez Gene and UniSTS is named “gene unists”, common information in Entrez Gene and
The NCBI Handbook

GEO is named "gene geo", etc. Properties may have the same name in multiple Entrez
databases. For example, the property srcdb_refseq_known used in Entrez Nucleotide and
Protein is interpreted from Entrez Gene as “There are associated sequence data where the
source database (srcdb) is RefSeq and the type of RefSeq is known”.

To clarify these standards, consider the following examples:

Example 1: Find human and mouse genes not annotated on the genome but having
reviewed RefSeq records. First, you have to know that if a gene is annotated on the
most recent genomic annotation, the filter “gene nucleotide pos” is set. Then you need
to restrict your query by species and by the type of RefSeq.
If you typed this interactively, the query would be:
(Human[organism] OR mouse[organism]) AND "srcdb refseq reviewed"[Properties]
NOT "gene nucleotide pos"[Filter]
A much simpler approach is: to use Limits to set the species; preview/index to find the
appropriate properties (reviewed RefSeqs, a characteristic of multiple Gene records); and a
The NCBI Handbook

filter to find those not annotated on a genome (based on lack of links to contig or chromosome-
based RefSeqs).

The steps you might follow are:

1 Click on Limits and check both human and mouse in the mammals section.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

2 Click on Preview/Index, select properties, click on Index, scroll until you see “srcdb
refseq reviewed”, select it, and click on AND.
3 Still in Preview/Index, select fillters, click on Index, scroll until you see gene nucletide
pos, select it, and click on NOT.
Example 2: Find all Gene records from fungi that have expression data in UniGene
or GEO.
If you typed this interactively, the query would be:
fungi[organism] AND ( "gene unigene"[filter] OR "gene geo"[filter])
A much simpler approach is to use Limits to set the taxonomic group and preview/index to
find the appropriate filters and combine them correctly

The steps you might follow are:

• Click on Limits and check fungi.
The NCBI Handbook

• Click on Preview/Index, select filters, click on Index, scroll until you see “gene
unigene” select it, and click on AND.
• Still in Preview/Index, select filters, click on Index, scroll until you see “gene geo”,
select it, and click on OR, and click on GO.
More sample queries are provided from the Entrez Gene help documents.

Box 1
Some fields used to index Entrez Gene
A comprehensive list, with examples, is maintained in Entrez Gene's help documentation.

Field name

Chromosome
The NCBI Handbook

Creation date

Default map location

Disease or phenotype

Domain name

EC/RN number

Gene name

Gene Ontology (GO terms and values)

Gene/protein name

MIM

Modification Date

Nucleotide Accession

Nucleotide UID
The NCBI Handbook

Nucleotide or protein Accession

Organism

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

Box 2
Some properties indexed by Entrez Gene
A current list can be displayed from Entrez Gene at any time by clicking on Preview/Index,
selecting Properties from the pull-down menu, and clicking on Index. Definitions of all
RefSeq types are maintained at the RefSeq homepage.

Property name Explanation

a current, primary record (i.e., not secondary or discontinued). The term second
alive
ary means a record that has been merged into another.

GeneRIF a record having one or more GeneRIF annotations attached

genetype miscrna gene encodes an RNA not in any of the specifics below

genetype other of know type, but not any of the specific known categories
The NCBI Handbook

genetype protein coding encodes a protein

genetype pseudo pseudogene

genetype rrna encodes ribosomal RNA

genetype scrna encodes small cytoplasmic RNA

genetype snorna encodes small nucleolar RNA

genetype snrna encodes small nuclear RNA

genetype trna encodes transfer RNA

genetype unknown the type of gene is not known

a record having two or more associated RefSeq transcripts, i.e. splice variants.
NOTE: this is limited to RefSeq annotation and should NOT be used to identify
has transcript variants
all genes exhibiting alternative splicing, promoter usage, and/or polyadenylation
signals.
The NCBI Handbook

phenotype has an associated phenotype

phenotype only only method of defining this gene is by phenotype

source extrachomosomal located extrachromosomally

source genomic located on a chromosome

source mitochondrion located in the mitochondrion

source other location not included in other specifics

source organelle located in an organelle (includes mitochondrion and plastid)

source plasmid located in a plasmid

source plastid located in a plastid

source proviral located in a provirus

source virion located in a virion

srcdb refseq has an associated RefSeq

The NCBI Handbook

srcdb refseq inferred has an associated RefSeq of type inferred

srcdb refseq known has an associated RefSeq of type known

srcdb refseq model has an associated RefSeq of type model

srcdb refseq predicted has an associated RefSeq of type predicted

srcdb refseq provisional has an associated RefSeq of type provisional

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

srcdb refseq reviewed has an associated RefSeq of type reviewed

srcdb refseq validated has an associated RefSeq of type validated

Box 3
Some filters in Entrez Gene
The Entrez system uses the term filters to connote the function that subsets a query or
retrieval set by attributes of the record. Here are some common filters available from Gene.
This is a report you can generate by selecting “Filters” from the blue sidebar within 'My
NCBI'. The display from the preview/index menu is more concise.
You may select these commonly requested filters or use Browse to see all filters for this
database.
The NCBI Handbook

Configure > Gene

Commonly Requested Filters
Gene records annotated on partial or complete chromosomal RefSeqs (Genes
Genomes). Gene records with explicit links to RefSeq chromosome or contig accessions.
Gene records associated with citations in PubMed (gene pubmed). Gene records with
explicit links to Entrez PubMed. Useful to identify genes that have associated publications.
Gene records associated with expression data in UniGene (gene unigene). Gene records
with explicit links to Entrez UniGene. Calculated from common mRNA sequence data.
Gene records associated with PCR-based markers in UniSTS (gene unists). Gene
records associated with PCR-based marker data in Entrez UniSTS. Associations are
calculated by e-PCR or curated submissions.
The NCBI Handbook

Gene records associated with protein sequence (gene protein). Gene records with
explicit links to Entrez Protein. Includes links to GenPept, RefSeq, and SwissProt
accessions.
Gene records associated with variation information in dbSNP (gene snp). Gene records
with explicit links to Entrez dbSNP. Supports finding genes with variation information
available in dbSNP.
Gene records in GENSAT (gene gensat). Gene records with expression data and images
from the GENSAT project (mouse only).
Gene records shown in Map Viewer (gene mapview). Gene records known to be on a
current annotation of a genome.
Gene records with expression data in GEO (gene geo). Gene records with additional data
in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), based on common sequence information.
Gene records with Gene Genotype reports in dbSNP(gene genotype). Gene records with
The NCBI Handbook

reports of genotypes in the dbSNP database.

Gene records with homology data (gene homologene). Gene records with explicit links
to Entrez HomoloGene. Useful to find genes that appear to be conserved.
Gene records with MIM (Mendelian Inheritance in Man) numbers (gene omim). Gene
records with explicit links to OMIM. Includes links to both disease and “gene” records.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

Gene records with nucleotide sequence data (gene nucleotide). Gene records with
explicit links to Entrez nucleotide, excluding RefSeq chromosome or contig accessions.
Useful to find genes that have nucleotide sequence information.
Gene records with proteins calculated to contain conserved domains (gene cdd). Gene
records with RefSeq proteins calculated to contain conserved domains by comparison to
the CDD database.

Display Formats
Entrez Gene provides several displays differing in content and format to help you find and
report the information you want. There are two default displays: the summary HTML page
returned in response to a query, and the complete (Graphic) HTML display returned after a
single record is selected. All HTML displays include the Links function that indicates what
other resources contain additional information. Some of these links are based on information
The NCBI Handbook

managed directly from Entrez Gene. For example, links to Entrez Nucleotide, Entrez Protein,
PubMed, and OMIM are based on the sequences, citations, and MIM numbers contained in a
record. Other links are managed from databases other than Entrez Gene or from information
shared by other databases. For example, links to dbSNP, GENSAT, GEO, HomoloGene,
UniGene, and UniSTS are based on shared nucleotide sequence data. Links to CDD are based
on shared protein sequence. Links to Map Viewer indicate that information about the position
of the gene is available.

Another useful display format is the Gene Table. If a gene has been annotated on any genomic
RefSeq, the intron/exon organization of each transcript is summarized. In the case of an mRNA,
the translated region of each exon is summarized. Gene Table facilitates access to other gene-
related sequences, such as the complete RNA, protein, specific exons, introns, or coding
regions. Other display formats include XML and ASN1- specifications for each can be found
in the Entrez Gene help document.

Detailed information about each display format is available in the "Interpreting the Display"
The NCBI Handbook

section of the Entrez Gene help document.

Content
The content of an Entrez Gene record fits into several sub-categories. Those listed here
correspond roughly to what is seen in the default full (Graphic) display.

Nomenclature
Entrez Gene uses official symbols and full names and reports the nomenclature authority when
available. Otherwise, symbols and names are selected from the defining sequence record. For
example, if sequence and positional homology (synteny) suggest that a nameless locus in one
species is orthologous to a named gene in another, the symbol from the ortholog may be used.
If no symbol is identified, and the genome is processed gene-by-gene rather than as a complete
re-annotation, the letters LOC are prepended to the GeneID. Once a meaningful symbol is
identified, the contrived "LOC" symbol is removed (because the record will still be searchable
The NCBI Handbook

and identified by the GeneID itself).

In addition to official symbols and full names, Entrez Gene provides others seen in publications
and sequence records. These alternative names are not meant to be comprehensive and often
are identified only when the RefSeq is being reviewed.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

Several NCBI databases use the nomenclature maintained by Entrez Gene. These names are
incorporated based primarily on the name-GeneID-sequence relationships that Entrez Gene
reports. These data are reported in several files on Entrez Gene's FTP site, including DATA/
gene_info.gz and DATA/gene2accession.gz.

Overview
Some of the components of the Gene record describe key characteristics of the gene, its
function, and its products. The Summary, written by RefSeq staff and/or by external
contributors such as OMIM or Rat genome Database (RGD), provides a quick synopsis of what
is known about the gene, the function of its encoded protein or RNA products, disease
associations, spatial and temporal distribution, and so on. The gene type is assigned from a list
of options defined in the Entrez Gene data model.

The value of RefSeqStatus indicates the maximum level of review that has been provided to
the set of gene-specific accessions.
The NCBI Handbook

Map Data
Several types of map information may be included in an Entrez Gene record. One type is the
description of location in units commonly used for a given genome. Genetic and physical map
positions are incorporated from the published maps used in Map Viewer. Rather than report
all position data for any gene in any coordinate system, this information can be obtained through
links to Map Viewer. Information can also be accessed through marker names, which are linked
to the UniSTS record.

When no independent map data are available and the gene has been placed on a genomic
assembly, map position may be inferred by a calculated correspondence between sequence and
other map units, such as cytogenetic bands. One example is the calculation of cytogenetic
position according to the algorithm developed by Furey and Haussler (7). With each re-
assembly of a genome, genes might be moved to other chromosomes with which better
alignments are identified. If marker and other data are consistent with but distinct from the
The NCBI Handbook

published map location, then the Entrez Gene record is modified to be consistent with current
information.

Markers are reported in Entrez Gene either as a gene or as a marker that has a calculated or
curated relationship with a gene. Entrez Gene does not store all of the markers available for a
genome; that is the function of UniSTS. The marker data in Entrez Gene come from any of the
following: a report from a genome-specific database; calculations based on e-PCR that
indicates that an mRNA is associated with the gene; and e-PCR based localization on the
genome within a region beginning 2 kb upstream of the gene and ending 0.5 kb downstream.
In queries initiated from Entrez Gene, genes that have PCR-based markers can be identified
by the query "gene unists"[filter].

When a gene has been annotated on a genomic RefSeq, map information is also presented by
the graphic display of neighboring genes. An arrow indicates the direction of transcription. If
the name of a gene is too long to be used as a label, truncation is indicated by an ellipsis (...).
The NCBI Handbook

The gene specific to the displayed record is highlighted. The arrows and labels anchor links to
the records for those genes, supporting quick navigation. If a gene is annotated on more than
one genomic RefSeq, only one is used for the graphic display. The location data for each RefSeq
are provided in the ASN.1 of the full Entrez Gene record.

Map data are also supported by named links to Map Viewer in the Links menu. Because links
are provided by the Map Viewer database, changes in these links are not reflected in the

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

modification date on the record. For genomes where comparative maps are available in Map
Viewer, links to Map Viewer are also provided for those views.

Sequence-related Data
Sequence information is presented in multiple forms in Gene:
• graphical displays of the intron/exon organization of splice variants
• reports of intron/exon organization of each variant in the Gene Table display
• reports of RefSeq accessions and their domain content
• reports of accessions from DDBJ, EMBL, GenBank and Swiss-Prot
• links to the genomic sequence, in standard formats, for the genomic sequence of the
gene, individual introns or exons, and the transcripts (Gene Table display) http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/help/genehelp.html#display_table
The NCBI Handbook

• links to related records via the Conserved Domain database

• links to the BLink viewer of protein neighbors
Sequence information (accessions and links) is distributed throughout the Entrez Gene record.
For example, the Transcripts and Products diagram is provided when a gene has been annotated
on a genomic RefSeq, in other words when the intron/exon/coding region information is
available in genomic coordinates. Each position of a gene product, when represented by a
RefSeq RNA and/or protein, is provided relative to the genomic DNA. Each RefSeq Accession
number (genomic, mRNA and protein) anchors a link to different formats of the sequence in
Entrez Nucleotide or Entrez Protein (the link can be found over the diagram). The link from
the Accession number for the genomic sequence displays only gene-specific region. The anchor
on the protein accessions also facilitates retrieval of specific BLink, CDD, or COG displays.

The NCBI Reference Sequences (RefSeqs) section lists nucleotide and protein accessions that
are related to the gene and provides links to the appropriate sequence record in Entrez
Nucleotide or Entrez Protein. Conserved domains are reported by name, location on the
The NCBI Handbook

sequence, and the BLAST score substantiating the assignment.

“Related sequences” lists nucleotide and protein accessions that are related to the gene and
provides links to the appropriate sequence record in Entrez Nucleotide or Protein. If the protein
sequence record is not part of a set of a nucleotide record and the protein it encodes, the word
'none' is printed in the nucleotide column. The type of nucleotide record is printed before the
nucleotide accession, and the strain is printed after the protein accession, as applicable.

Function
Gene uses several approaches to describe the function of a gene and its encoded products.
These include:
• explicit descriptive statements (RefSeq Summary and GeneRIF)
• names of genes, products, and pathways
• associated ontologies (GO)
The NCBI Handbook

• reports of interactions
• Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers
• inferences from domain content
• descriptions of diseases or allele-specific phenotypes
• links to other databases (OMIM, HomoloGene, PubMed)

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

Many of these categories include links to additional information in other databases. Links to
the data sources are provided. We appreciate the cooperation of the resources that have made
their data freely available.

Variation
Gene does not report variation information directly. Rather it provides three types of links to
dbSNP, where these variation data are stored. These types are implemented by the filters gene
snp, gene snp gene genotype, and gene snp geneview (Box 3).

Homology
Except for indicating the availability of comparative maps (limited at the time of this writing
to Entrez Gene records from human, mouse, and rat), Entrez Gene provides information about
homology only by displaying links to HomoloGene and/or COG. It also provides links to
resources that display pre-computed sequence relationships such as BLink.
The NCBI Handbook

Expression
The qualitative assessment of whether a gene is expressed is captured in the Gene type and in
the types of sequence accessions associated with the Gene record. The quantitative and spatio-
temporal aspects of expression are stored in other databases, including GEO, GENSAT, and
UniGene at NCBI.

Other Sites of Interest

Entrez Gene provides information about other sites of interest both within a record and via the
LinkOut mechanism. As more data providers submit their LinkOuts to Entrez Gene, the second
method will be increasingly powerful. Users can take advantage of the LinkOut connections,
and other filters, by registering for My NCBI and customizing the display.

References
The NCBI Handbook

1. Maglott, Ostell, Pruitt, Tatusova. Entrez Gene: gene-centered information at NCBI. Nucleic Acids Res
2005;Database Issue:D54–8. [PubMed: 15608257]
2. Wheeler D L, Barrett T, Benson D A, Bryant S H. Database resources of the National Center for
Biotechnology Information. Nucleic Acids Res 2005;Database Issue:D39–45. [PubMed: 15608222]
3. Pruitt K D, Tatusova T, Maglott D R. NCBI Reference Sequence (RefSeq): a curated non-redundant
sequence database of genomes, transcripts and proteins. Nucleic Acids Res 2005;Database
Issue:D501–4. [PubMed: 15608248]
4. Gerhard D S, Wagner L, Feingold E A, Shenmen C M. The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH
full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC). Genome Res 2004;14:2121–7.
[PubMed: 15489334]528928
5. Pruitt K D, Katz K S, Sicotte H, Maglott D R. Introducing RefSeq and LocusLink: curated human
genome resources at the NCBI. Trends Genet 2000;16:44–47. [PubMed: 10637631]
6. Schuler G D, Epstein J A, Ohkawa H, Kans J A. Entrez: molecular biology database and retrieval
system. Methods Enzymol 1996;266:141–162. [PubMed: 8743683]
7. Furey T S, Haussler D. Integration of the cytogenetic map with the draft human genome sequence.
The NCBI Handbook

Hum Mol Genet 2003;12:1037–1044. [PubMed: 12700172]

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

Using the Map Viewer to Explore Genomes

[Chapter 20]

Susan M. Dombrowski
Donna Maglott

Summary
There are many different approaches to starting a genomic analysis. These include literature
The NCBI Handbook

searching, searching databases for gene names and other genomic features, performing sequence
comparisons, or using map data to find gene information by position relative to other landmarks. The
NCBI Map Viewer has been developed to facilitate this latter approach.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a foundation for gaining maximum benefit from using the
Map Viewer and related resources at NCBI. It is important to note that in this document, the term
“map” refers to a position of a particular type of object in a particular coordinate system. This means,
for example, that there is not one sequence map but a set of maps in sequence coordinates. Readers
interested in precisely how sequence-based maps are annotated and assembled should refer to Chapter
14.

Introduction
First launched with the release of the sequence of Drosophila melanogaster in March 2000,
Map Viewer is now used to present genetic, radiation hybrid (RH), cytogenetic, breakpoint,
sequence-based, and clone maps for many genomes. The availability of whole genome
The NCBI Handbook

sequences means that objects such as genes, markers, clones, sites of variation, and clone
boundaries can be positioned by aligning defining sequence from these objects against the
genomic sequence. This position information can then be compared to information about order
obtained by other means, such as genetic or physical mapping. The results of sequence-based
queries (e.g., BLAST) can also be viewed in genomic context. Our view of the genomes of a
variety of organisms is constantly being improved through the increase in underlying data.

Map Viewer integrates map and sequence data from a variety of sources. The basic architecture
and principle of Map Viewer can be applied to any complete or incomplete genome as long as
map data exist to support it. Map Viewer is a powerful tool because it provides: (1) a mechanism
to compare maps in different coordinate systems; (2) a robust query interface; (3) diverse
options for configuring the display; (4) multiple functions to report and download maps and
annotated information; (5) tools to manipulate nucleotide sequence such as ModelMaker (for
constructing mRNAs from putative exon sequences); (6) connections to comprehensive data
files for transfer by FTP; and (7) detailed descriptions of the objects displayed on the maps.
The NCBI Handbook

Maintenance of Data
Data Sources
Non-Sequence-based Maps. Sources of maps that are not based directly on sequence include
published maps in genetic, radiation hybrid, cytogenetic, and ordinal coordinate systems
(where ordinal refers to clone order). The primary sources of each map are described in the
online help documentation of each genome-specific Map Viewer. We are indebted to the
researchers who make their mapping results so freely available. When a new version of any
map becomes available, the data are also updated in the appropriate NCBI database.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Sequence-based Maps. The sequence-based maps shown through Map Viewer can be
supplied by external sources and/or supplied from features computed within NCBI. For
example, when the annotated sequence for a complete genome is submitted to the sequence
databases (GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ), a copy of the data may also be accessioned as Reference
Sequences (RefSeqs; see Chapter 18). The gene, transcript, and other feature annotations of
the submitted complete genome are processed for display in the Map Viewer. NCBI staff may
then calculate and display the position of other types of features, such as marker position or
points of variation, as separate maps (Table 1).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Types of Map Viewer annotation provided by NCBI
Featurea Coordinate systemb Representative mapsc

STS Sequence (Mb), Radiation hybrid (cRay), Genetic (cM), STS, STSnw, G3, GM4, GeneMap'99, TNG, Marshfield,
Clone content (ordinal), Cytogenetic Genethon, deCode, Whitehead YAC, phenotype maps such
as Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL)

Clones Sequence, Cytogenetic Clone, BES, Components

 Expression Sequence SAGE tag, UniGene

Genes Sequence (Mb), Cytogenetic (band names) Genes_seq, Genes_cyto

 Gene-related Sequence, Cytogenetic UniGene, GenomeScan, Mitelman recurrent breakpoint,

morbid

Variation Sequence (Mb) Variation

 Published accessions Sequence (Mb) GenBank

The NCBI Handbook

 Phenotype Cytogenetic, Cytogenetic (abnormalities), Sequence OMIM's morbid map, Mitelman's recurrent breakpoint,
QTL (in progress)

Source clones Sequence (Mb) Component

 Homology Sequence (Mb) Indirectly via LocusLink or UniGene. For mouse and
human, through the homology (hm) link to the mouse–
human homology map
a
The feature column lists the types of objects annotated on maps seen in Map Viewer. Those features in bold type are annotated on the RefSeqs;
the rest are provided only from the Map Viewer, and the files are available for FTP transfer.
b
The different map types and coordinate systems that may contain a particular type of feature.
c
A partial enumeration of named maps that represents positions of this feature type.

Some of the annotation of genomic sequence carried out by NCBI is included in the genomic
reference sequences (NC, NT, and NW Accession number format); however, other annotation
is represented only in the Map Viewer and in the associated reports (Table 1). This latter type
of annotation is based on information in several NCBI databases (Table 2) and is particularly
important for attaching biological information to sequence data. Links to these resources are
The NCBI Handbook

provided in Map Viewer to provide further information about each annotated object. It should
be noted, however, that although sequence features may be placed in a genomic context
automatically, there are curation steps that affect the final displays. For example, for the human
and mouse genomes, sequences defining genes and pseudogenes are reviewed by collaborators
and NCBI staff and, whenever possible, used as the basis of RefSeq records (NG, NM, and
NR Accession number format).
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Table 2
NCBI data resources used in NCBI-generated annotation
Resource Description

Clone Registry Clone sequencing sequence status, STS content, and availability

dbSNP Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), polymorphisms, small-scale insertions/deletions, polymorphic repetitive elements

Genome Guides Directory of key resources for the genome, with links to related resources and tutorials. The directory to guide pages is available
from Genomic Biology.

LocusLink Locus-specific data for a subset of organisms with extensive links to related resources and sequence data

OMIM Human genes and Mendelian disorders

RefSeq NCBI's curated, non-redundant RefSeqs

UniGene Computed clusters of cDNA and Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) sequences from the same gene, with tissue expression
information and links to related resources
The NCBI Handbook

UniSTS Unified, nonredundant database of sequence tagged sites (STSs)

Feature annotation is computed primarily in two ways: (1) by alignment of the defining
sequence to the genome; or (2) for sequence tagged sites (STSs), by e-PCR (1). In some
genomes, gene placement is based primarily on the alignment of mRNA [Expressed Sequence
Tags (ESTs) and cDNAs], but only when an encoded protein is predicted. In other cases, where
transcription evidence is weaker, more weight is given to identification of protein-coding
regions. Gene identification is also constrained in that a known gene cannot be placed more
than once in a haplotype (except for pseuodo-autosomal regions) or on an incorrect
chromosome. Thus, if any reference haplotype retains inappropriately redundant sequence that
encodes a gene, only one copy will be annotated as that gene. Others will be assigned interim
IDs (see Chapter 14). Some ab initio methods may also be used for gene prediction. The
predicted genes, as well as the mRNAs, are supplied as separate maps (gene, RNA, or
GenomeScan maps).

In some cases, the position of these features may suggest the location of other genomic regions
The NCBI Handbook

of interest. For example, the position of STS markers can help define the position of phenotypes
such as quantitative trait loci (QTL). Although the best annotation of a gene or region is always
through annotation by an expert researcher, automated annotation of genomes and comparison
to that provided by experts can provide significant useful information. Experts interested in
analyzing or assisting with genome annotation should contact us at [email protected].

Relationships among Coordinate Systems

In addition to supporting the display of multiple maps in the same coordinate system (e.g.,
multiple sequence-based maps), Map Viewer also displays maps in different coordinate
systems by calculating the correspondances among them (e.g., sequence to genetic). This is
accomplished by: (a) identifying features that have been placed on maps in different coordinate
systems; and (b) using general conversion factors. In the first case, placement of STSs on the
genome is critical for the integration of sequence data with other, non-sequence-based maps,
such as genetic and RH maps. The integration of cytogenetic data with sequence data is
achieved through alignment of sequence from clones that have been placed cytogentically,
The NCBI Handbook

such as the human fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)-mapped clones from the Bacterial
Artificial Chromosome (BAC) Resource Consortium (2). The integration of non-sequence-
based maps with the sequence provides a powerful mechanism to access portions of sequence
on the basis of marker or cytogenetic data. Many features, such as Single Nucleotide
Polymorphisms (SNPs), ESTs, mRNAs, whole genome shotgun reads, and clones can be
placed on the genome assembly by using standard DNA sequence alignment methods such as
BLAST.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

The identification of known genes within the genome assembly provides critical landmarks
and functional context to the sequence data, which in turn makes it easier to traverse to other
rich sources of gene and protein information, including publications, OMIM, RefSeq,
Conserved Domain Database (CDD), and LocusLink.

The power of calculating correspondances between coordinate systems may be more apparent
when considering a common application of Map Viewer, i.e., identifying candidate genes
within a region defined by genetic markers. When markers are palced on both genetic and
sequence maps, it is then possible to use the gene-related maps (gene, UniGene/EST, or ab
initio predictions) to identify possible genes of interest. For more details on how to do this, see
the Map Viewer Exercises in Chapter 23.

A Work in Progress
For many genomes, identifying and positioning chromosomes and genes within sequence
blocks is an ongoing process. In those cases, the Map Viewer can be used to evaluate the
The NCBI Handbook

evidence that supports the current representation of the sequence and visualize possible
conflicts. Inconsistencies in map order or in the placement of any object can be seen in the
Map Viewer; this is assisted in some cases by the use of color coding (Figures 1 and 2).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Evaluation of a chromosome sequence (STS) map

Potential inconsistencies in the order or orientation of sequence blocks can be investigated by
displaying a genetic map (Marshfield), radiation hybrid map (TNG), and sequence map (STS)
together and checking the Show connections box in the Maps & Options window. Note that
some of the gray lines (connecting the same marker on different maps) are crossed, indicating
that either the placement is incorrect on a map or the chromosome sequence is not ordered and
oriented consistently with all map data.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Evaluation of gene localization and annotation

A comparison of cDNA alignments (UniGene, RNA) and gene predictions (GenomeScan) to
the genomic contig annotation can be achieved by displaying three maps simultaneously. The
genomic contig (NT_024981.9) annotation is shown in the Genes_seq map and is displayed
with the GenomeScan predictions (the GScan map) and the EST/mRNA alignments labeled
The NCBI Handbook

by human UniGene clusters (the UniG_Hs map). Note that in this case, there are two sequence
objects not included in the contig annotation: one is an ab initio prediction (the last model in
the GScan map) (a); and the other is either some small gene or an alternative 3′ exon for PIK3C3
from the UniG_Hs map (b). This approach is especially useful when reviewing BLAST results
in a genomic context.

For some genomes, the color-coded contig map displays whether the annotation is based on
sequence assembled from draft or finished clones (blue, finished; green, whole genome
shotgun; orange, draft). This is helpful when evaluating the level of confidence in the
completeness of the annotation of a gene and/or its coding region.

Map Viewer also uses color coding or diagrams to represent the level of confidence in the
placement of any mapped object. For example, SNPs or STSs that are placed at more that one
position in a given map are noted by color (yellow) in the detailed labels (Figure 3a). Annotated
genes are shown in different colors, based on the source and level of confidence in the
annotation or the model (Figure 3b).
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Representation of ambiguity
(a) The marker D1S2894 is found on several maps. Note that for the first map (STS), the circle
is diagonally split with two colors. The diagonal means that the marker has been placed more
than once; the two colors mean that the placements are not on the same chromosome. (b) A
Map Viewer display of a region of chromosome 16. SNPs that are placed more than once on
the chromosome are designated by a yellow triangle. From the Contig map, it appears that at
least one of these SNPs (rs3220808) is placed both on draft sequence (orange) and on finished
sequence (blue). This may be an artifact resulting from misassembly or perhaps a region of
segmental duplication. This diagram also illustrates the use of color to indicate the source and
level of confidence in annotated genes. Blue indicates a confirmed gene with no conflicts; light
green indicates EST evidence only; dark brown indicates a GenomeScan prediction with
The NCBI Handbook

protein homology; orange means that there is a conflict between the annotated gene and the
mRNA evidence. (Ab initio predictions from GenomeScan are categorized into two types,
based on presence or absence of sequence similarity to vertebrate proteins or protein domains.)

Frequency of Updates
Although maps provided from external sources are updated when new data are available, the
maps dependent on NCBI's annotation process are updated periodically in versions called

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

“builds”. Thus, mRNA or other supporting evidence that becomes available after the data
“freeze” date for one build will not be incorporated into the display until the next build.
However, some of the supporting databases linked from the Map Viewer may have more
updated information. For example, UniSTS may provide more recent e-PCR results, or
LocusLink may show a newer name or additional sequence data. dbSNP may make major data
releases between builds; in this case, the variation map is updated.

Methods of Access
Although most of this chapter discusses the human genome Map Viewer, there is a growing
number of organisms for which there is Map Viewer access to the genome. To identify the taxa
that have Map Viewer access to the genome, query the taxonomy database by typing
“loprovmapviewer”[filter] into the query box on the Entrez Taxonomy homepage; or more
simply, review the options provided on the Map Viewer homepage.
The NCBI Handbook

Links from NCBI Resources

Many NCBI databases are now integrated into Map Viewer (Table 2); therefore, database
records are often linked to Map Viewer displays. If a sequence in the public databases was
released before the date of the current Map Viewer data freeze, then the position of this
sequence may be displayed within Map Viewer. For example, Entrez Nucleotide, UniGene,
UniSTS, and LocusLink records for sequences annotated on the human genome provide links
directly to the appropriate region of the genome via links called Map Viewer (in the Links
menu), Nucleotide, Map View, or mv links, respectively (Figure 4). It should be noted that
such links are only precomputed if at least 50% of the sequence aligns with an identity of
greater than 90%.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Connecting to Map Viewer from Entrez Nucleotide, using the Links menu in Entrez Nucleotide to
connect from a record to Map Viewer

Genome-specific resource pages also support queries via chromosome diagrams (Figure 5).
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Example of a genome-specific resource page supporting queries to Map Viewer

Note that there are two ways to connect: (1) by selecting Maps from the pull-down menu in
the gray bar at the top of the page and entering a query term in the Search box; or (2) by
selecting a chromosome in the genome diagram on the right of the page (yellow background).

Sequence Similarity Searches

Genome-specific BLAST pages that restrict a search to a specific genome are provided for
several organisms and allow the results of the search to be displayed in a genomic context
The NCBI Handbook

(provided by Map Viewer). Genome-specific BLAST searches can be accessed from the
BLAST homepage, the Map Viewer pages of individual organisms (e.g., human, mouse), and
the genome-specific resource pages of individual organisms. If the reference genome (the
default) is selected as the database to be searched, the Genome View button (Figure 6) will
appear on the BLAST results display page.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Accessing the Map Viewer display from a genome-specific BLAST results page
Selecting the Genome View button shows all of the BLAST hits on the genome.

Direct Query
Simple Searches
When already at a genome-specific Map Viewer page, any combination of query terms can be
entered into a Map Viewer Search for box (Figure 7). Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT)
and the use of * as a wild card (applied to the right of any term) are supported. The Search
for and Help document hyperlinks provide current details about query options. An advanced
search is available for some genomes.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Representative of species-specific homepage

Note the links to the help documentation and related resources. Also note the check boxes to
use the advanced query page and/or to display objects calculated to have links to any object
returned by the query. A link to the genome-specific BLAST site is also provided at the top of
the form.

Queries may include any unique identifier for a database record, e.g., a sequence Accession
number or OMIM (MIM) number, or a text term or phrase, e.g., a gene symbol (BRCA2) or
descriptor (p53-binding), or disease name (lung cancer). The Boolean AND operator is used
automatically if multiple terms are entered. Therefore, a query for “fanconi anemia” will
The NCBI Handbook

automatically be interpreted as “fanconi AND anemia”. The wildcard operator (*) provides a
convenient mechanism to retrieve genes that share a common symbol or name, as is often found
for gene families. For example, a query for ABC* will return matches to the ATP-binding
cassette superfamily.

The advanced query page, accessed by checking the Advanced search box, provides additional
options to refine a query. These additional options, which may vary from genome to genome,
are useful for restricting queries to a particular search field or map type. The advanced query

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

page also includes predefined search options to restrict the search to data with certain
properties, e.g., to only find genes associated with a known disease or with sequence variation
(SNPs). Additional refinements to queries against the variation map can also be made, for
example, to search for variation markers known to be in a gene or coding region.

The same options for wild cards and Boolean operators for your query term(s) apply when
starting at the Map Viewer homepage. At present, however, you must select a genome to which
to restrict your search. An option to query across multiple genomes is under development.

Position-based Access
To use Map Viewer to display a particular section of a genome by using a range of positions
as a query, it is first necessary to select a particular chromosome for display from either a
genome-specific Map Viewer page or a Genome Guide page.

Once a single chromosome is displayed, position-based queries can be defined by: (1) entering
The NCBI Handbook

a value into the Region Shown box. This could be a numerical range (base pairs are the default
if no units are entered), the names of clones, genes, markers, SNPs, or any combination. The
screen will be refreshed with only that region shown. If the first entry cannot be resolved, the
display will extend to the top of the map; if the second entry cannot be resolved, the display
will extend to the bottom of the map. Both of these navigational aids are found on the left of
the page; and (2) using the Maps & Options controls. One of the options in this menu is to
define the region shown. Here it may be clearer that the region selected will be in the coordinates
of the rightmost, or Master, map, which may also be adjusted in this menu. The values that can
be used to specify the range are the same as those described in (1), above. (See Customizing
the Display for more details on fine-tuning.)

Tutorials in Chpater 23, particularly #2, provide more examples of querying Map Viewer by
position.

Interpreting the Display

The NCBI Handbook

Map Viewer Summary Results

The results from a query are displayed both graphically and in a summary table (Figure 8).
When the query is executed by BLAST, the graphical view is color-coded according to the
BLAST score, and the table summarizes the scores and the RefSeq Accession numbers that
have matches. Clicking on the RefSeq Accession number (i.e., those beginning with NT_ or
NW_) displays that BLAST result in the Map Viewer.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Map Viewer query results

(a) Note that an OMIM (MIM) number was entered as a query, and the Show linked entries
box was checked. (b) The red tick marks next to the chromosome diagram indicate where the
results appear to be placed on the chromosome. The left/right placement does not indicate
strand; it allows more resolution between tick marks. (c) When a result is returned as the result
of a link, the data in the Match column of the table begin with linked to. The complete results
for a particular chromosome can be displayed by selecting the name of the chromosome on the
graphical portion of the display or selecting all matches in the summary table. The number of
matches per chromosome is reported under each chromosome in the graphical overview, and
the total number of results returned is indicated below that. Additional pages are provided if
the query returns over 100 results. The table indicates the chromosomal location, the match
The NCBI Handbook

found, the map element returned, the type of match found, and the specific map(s) that contains
the query match. Only the first 40 characters are shown in the Match column, and therefore
the portion of text that matches the query may not be displayed. All maps that contain any
object are viewed by selecting the name of the object in the Map element column. To see only
one map, select the name of that map. In some cases, the resultant display will contain related
maps in the same sequence coordinates. For example, selecting a sequence-based gene map

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

may result in the display of mRNA alignments, labeled with UniGene cluster designations,
and ab initio predictions.

Viewing the Maps

The Graphical Display
General information on the chromosome being viewed is summarized at the top of the map
page: the species and chromosome currently being viewed, the query term, and the name of
the focal map, termed the Master Map (Figure 9c).
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Representative map display

(a) Search and find options. (b) Compress Map allows you to select whether to display labels
on maps other than the rightmost one. The Region Shown: and zoom graphic allow you to
reset the range displayed either explicitly or by chromosome fractions, respectively. (c)
Explanation and tools. This section reminds you of your chitin* query and provides statistics
about the elements mapped on the Master Map for that chromosome. In this example, 3978
genes are annotated on chromosome IV, and 2 of 2 in the region are being displayed. The range
shown is summarized, and links are provided to tools to download a region of the sequence
and use ModelMaker and Evidence Viewer. The labels at the top of each map are connected
to the documentation for that map, the -> makes the map become the master, and the X removes
the map from the viewer. (d) Map. This section contains a representation of the order of
elements in the range displayed and provides information about each, either by mousing over
the label (uncompressed) or circle (compressed) of the non-master map, or by clicking on the
The NCBI Handbook

links provided on the labels for the Master Map. This example shows that there is an option to
display a ruler for any map. As described in the text and other figures, color is used in this
display to convey information as well.

The summary also includes the following statistics concerning the number of objects on the
Master Map, which are:
• the number of objects localized (positioned) on the chromosome

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook

• the number of objects not localized but present on the chromosome

• the number of objects localized in the region displayed (i.e., the number decreases as
you zoom in)
• the number of objects for which text descriptions are shown (dependent on user-defined
page length)
A thumbnail map on the left of the page provides a coarse indication of the region displayed;
by default, this is a cytogenetic map, although the Master Map can be selected (Figure 9b).

Maps are displayed vertically, with the name of each map hyperlinked to a description of it
(Figure 9d). Features displayed on the Master Map have brief descriptive labels; information
on features on the non-Master Maps can be found by mousing over an object. The labels on
the Master Map depend on the type of object and genome being explored but can provide:
(a) links to resources defining the mapped element, some of which may not be at NCBI; (b)
indicators of the confidence in the placement or naming or sequence in the region; (c) biological
The NCBI Handbook

features of the element (for SNPs, this includes position in a gene or effects on the coding
region); (d) direction of transcription for genes; and (e) links to tools to facilitate reviewing of
the sequence (sv), downloading a subsequence of interest (seq), the mRNA alignments in a
region (ev), homology maps (hm), or to create cDNA sequences in real time (mm). (See the
section on Associated Tools for more information.).

The positions of BLAST hits are highlighted on the Contig map, and a text summary of the
BLAST hit is provided with links to regional alignment reports. All of the options described
previously for configuring your display are still available. Thus, it is possible to evaluate the
sequence match by the location (possible intron/exon structure, percent identity) as well as to
determine whether the matching genomic region contains all of the query sequence in the
expected order. Adding other maps to the display using the Maps&Options window provides
a powerful mechanism to determine how the query sequence corresponds to existing
annotation, such as genes, gene predictions, STS markers, or SNPs. For more hints, see the
tutorial section on querying the human genome by sequence.
The NCBI Handbook

The Tabular Display (View Data as Table/Download)

A tabular report of the region and maps being displayed can be generated by selecting the Data
as Table View link (Figure 9b). The default report is restricted to maps that were in the previous
graphical display. Tables indicating the object name, or other identifier, and chromosome
coordinates are provided for each map, along with many of the links seen in the graphical
display. If the region being displayed on the map includes more than 1000 features per map, a
warning message is displayed that points to the FTP site as an alternative for large-scale access.

If any of the maps are in sequence coordinates, an option is presented to report data for any
sequence map in the region. Note: Links are provided for downloading tab-delimited files for
any or all maps.

Customizing the Display

The Map Viewer display can be customized with regard to the region shown, the number and
The NCBI Handbook

coordinate systems of maps, the number of objects labeled on the Master Map, and whether to
show connections between objects. Each of these will be described in this section.

Selecting the Region to Display

The Map Viewer provides zoom, navigation, and other map display controls. These can be
found on the display page itself and in the Maps&Options window (Figure 10).

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Representative Maps&Options window

The menus and boxes in this window allow definition of the range of the chromosome to display
(Region Shown:), selection of the new map(s) to add to the display (Available Maps:),
establishment of the order and ruler options [Maps Displayed (left to right):], control of the
display of lines connected to related objects on different maps (Show connections box), control
of the length of the label on the rightmost (Master) map (Verbose Mode box), compression
The NCBI Handbook

of the graphic (Compressed Graphics box), control of the number of labels on the Master
map (Page Length: box), and control of the diagram in the Thumbnail View:. To add map
(s) to the display, select the map name(s) and then click on ADD>>. To remove map(s) from
the display, select the map name(s) in the Maps Displayed box and then click on
<<REMOVE. Please note that this is an example of a configuration that might be useful in
displaying gene-related information, i.e., maps of UniGene, Gene, and GenomeScan.

As the resolution of a view is changed, the chromosome diagram is updated. The view
automatically centers on a highlighted query term, or on the middle of the chromosome if
browsing only. The chromosome view can be moved up and down or zoomed in and out.
Zooming can be achieved in several ways: (1) by using the zoom control, located in the left
column; (2) by providing a range or bounding markers in the Region Shown text boxes; or (3)
by selecting part of the map to display a menu with predefined zoom levels. Most menu-based
zooms should be carried out in two or three steps to avoid missing the region of interest. It is
also possible to scroll or reposition the display by selecting recenter from the menu that pops
The NCBI Handbook

up when you click on the chromosome diagram at the left or on a map or by clicking on the
arrows at the top and bottom of a map.

Selecting the Maps (Tracks) to Display

Maps are categorized by the coordinate system as well as type of feature. The maps available
for a genome can be seen by scrolling through the Maps menu in the Maps&Options window
or in the genome-specific help documentation. For display and query purposes, different types

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 20
The NCBI Handbook

of features annotated on sequence coordinates are treated as different maps. The maps in
sequence coordinates are comparable because all of the sequence maps are based on the
reference to a standard genome assembly. Thus, one can display the SNP map (at high zoom
level) next to the Gene, UniGene, or GenomeScan map to ascertain the number and location
of polymorphisms in a region.

Some basic map controls are available directly on the display including removal of a map from
the display by clicking on the X over the map and moving a secondary map to the Master Map
position by clicking on the arrow next to the map label.

The Maps&Options window provides advanced options to: (a) add a ruler to any map; (b)
reset the page length to display more (or less) information; (c) define region to display by
providing coordinates or marker name in Region Shown boxes (also available directly on the
Map Viewer display); (d) display direct connections between maps by checking the Show
connections box; (e) optionally view text in Verbose or Condensed mode by selecting the
The NCBI Handbook

checkbox. These user-defined preferences will be maintained for additional queries on different
regions or chromosomes, until reset.

There has been considerable effort to integrate data on the sequence-based maps with data from
non-sequence-based maps. Map connections provide a unique and powerful mechanism to
identify features in a relevant region of the sequence map when starting with information from
a different coordinate system (see Relationships among Coordinate Systems).

The features that are available with Map Viewer are summarized in Box 1.

Box 1
Map Viewer-associated functions
Query:
 Text
The NCBI Handbook

 Text, advanced
 Nucleotide query (by alignment or Accession number)
 Protein query (by alignment)
 By position in genome
Display Data:
 Graphical
 Tabular
 Assembled sequence
 Annotated feature sequence
Download:
The NCBI Handbook

 Sequence region
 Other map data for region
 Custom model (Model Maker)
Change Display Configuration:
 Zoom

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 21
The NCBI Handbook

 Scroll along chromosome

 Add/Remove tracks/maps
 Scalebar (ruler)
 Change order of track/map
 Specify coordinates to view
 Jump to different chromosome
 Show links
 Alter number of rows displayed
FTP:
 Assembled sequence
The NCBI Handbook

 Model mRNA sequence

 Model protein sequence
 Contig/chromosome conversion tables
 Map location, sequence-based
 Map location, non-sequence-based
Links:
 Help documentation
 Statistics
 FAQs
The NCBI Handbook

Associated Tools
Map Viewer provides links to several tools to display, download, or manipulate the sequence
in a user-defined region. Whenever a sequence-based map is the master (the one at the right),
the link Download/View Sequence/Evidence is provided above the map display. This opens
a window that provides access to the seq, ev, and mm tools described below. In addition, when
the annotated object is a gene (sequence or cytogenetic maps) or the species-specific UniGene
cluster, the label may include these links.

The Evidence Viewer (ev) displays graphically the GenBank and RefSeq cDNAs that align to
the genome in a particular region, along with a density plot for ESTs. The positions of any
mismatches or insertions/deletions are marked, the multiple pairwise sequence alignments are
provided, and computed translations are shown.

The Sequence Viewer (sv) is the Entrez graphical display option for any nucleotide sequence,
focused on the gene indicated. By default, a 2-kb section of sequence is shown below the
The NCBI Handbook

representation of the features, but that limit can be increased at the bottom of the page. It is
also possible to zoom and navigate in the display.

Sequence Download (seq) provides the same function as the Download/View Sequence link
provided at the top of the Maps page. The scope of the sequence passed to the tool corresponds
to what is being viewed on the page. When connected to a gene feature, the scope corresponds
to that gene. The tool allows the user to alter the sequence scope and to select a report format

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 22
The NCBI Handbook

(e.g., FASTA, GenBank, ASN.1). For the human and mouse genomes, a link is also provided
to the Human–Mouse Homology Map (hm).

Model Maker (mm) displays the evidence for exons in a genomic region by diagramming the
exons predicted from the alignment of cDNAs, from ab initio models (the default), and from
alignment of ESTs (after an explicit selection). To facilitate construction of your own model
transcript or transcripts, the splice junctions and the exons they connect are displayed, and the
coding potential of any combination of exons can quickly be evaluated using ORFfinder. The
sequence can also be edited, and the results can be saved or downloaded.

Technical Details
Data Access
The data displayed in Map Viewer are freely available. In addition to the view-specific reports,
all of the data are available by FTP. README files document the content and format of each
The NCBI Handbook

file. Genomic data are also available by chromosome; this includes genomic contigs (NT_ or
NW_ Accession numbers) built from finished and unfinished sequence data. The contig data
are available in various formats, including ASN.1, FASTA, GenBank, and GenPept. Also
available in this directory are the RNAs (NM_, XM_ , and XR_ Accession numbers) and
proteins (NP_, XP_).

Constructing URLs to Generate Specific Displays

Dynamic links to Map Viewer can be generated by constructing URLs with arguments that
define the species, chromosome, range, types of maps (with or without units), display order,
number of labels, query string, how to center a display around a query result, and the type of
label for the display. The most current documentation is provided in the online help. The
examples in Box 2, however, may illustrate the flexibility of the approach. Please note that the
argument of the map in the URL is processed as an ordered list, with the order in the list
controlling the left-to-right order in the display. Additional qualifiers control the display of a
ruler and the range on the chromosome. If a query term is included as a part of the URL and
The NCBI Handbook

that value cannot be identified on any of the maps in the list, that map will not be displayed.

Box 2
Examples of URL construction
(a) Find the neighborhood (zoom=2) of the HIRA gene (chromosome 22) on all gene-
containing human maps plus an ideogram, with the sequence map (loc) as the master map.
Provide the detailed description of the genes (verbose=on). URL: http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/maps.cgi?
org=hum&chr=22&query=HIRA&zoom=2&maps=ideogr,morbid,gene,loc&verbose=on
(b) Find human FISH-mapped clones (fish) in a cytogenetic region (coordinates are added
to define the region) and also on the sequence map (clone). URL: http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/maps.cgi?org=hum&chr=1&maps=clone,fish[1pter-
p31]
The NCBI Handbook

(c) Show comparable regions on the human contig (cntg), component (comp), gene
(gene,loc), and STS (sts) maps between the markers D7S726 and D7S2686. Show the ruler
for the STS map (-r) and highlight the query terms. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
mapview/maps.cgi?org=hum&chr=7&maps=cntg,comp,gene,loc,sts[D7S726:D7S2686]-
r&query=D7S726+D7S2686
(d) Show potential genes (RefSeqs, ESTs, GenomeScan models) on a human genomic
contig (NT_), with corresponding GenBank Accession numbers used to build the contig

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 23
The NCBI Handbook

(displayed on the comp map) and FISH-mapped clones (on the clone map). URL: http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/maps.cgi?ORG=hum&gnl=NT_023567&maps=cntg-
r,clone,comp,scan,est,loc&query=NT_023567&cmd=focus
(e) Display mouse chromosome 6 on the radiation hybrid (rh) and genetic (mgi, wigen)
maps and highlight the query term, D6Mit113. Zoom into 30% of the chromosome, with
A2m in the center of that region. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/maps.cgi?
org=mouse&chr=6&maps=rh,mgi,wigen&query=D6Mit113&zoom=30

Implementation
Query terms are indexed for retrieval using the Entrez system. Thus, wild cards, Boolean
operators, filters, and properties are managed as for other Entrez databases.

Each distinct object on the map is assigned a unique identifier that is specific to a particular
The NCBI Handbook

build. Each object may have other secondary identifiers, such as IDs, in the sequence, Clone
Repository, dbSNP, LocusLink, UniGene, or UniSTS databases. All descriptors are indexed
as text. In addition, some are indexed by specific field values or by pre-identified properties,
such as genes with associated diseases, SNPs with heterozygosity values in pre-defined ranges,
or evidence type for genes. These field names or properties can be applied to restrict a query
either in the Web-based query form or within a URL. The complete listings of current
implementations for field qualifiers and properties are provided in the online help
documentation.

Data for each map are retrieved for display from a relational database based on the IDs returned
from the Entrez query. The database is used only to support display; it is refreshed with each
NCBI build or update of any other map but not to track changes from build to build. Data from
previous builds are archived at NCBI, but direct access is not currently supported.

Caveats for Using Evolving Data

The NCBI Handbook

Map Viewer displays represent the current synthesis of information available at the time of the
data freeze (Table 3). It is important to understand that the underlying data may change from
build to build, as our view of a genome becomes more refined. The data presented should
always be critically reviewed, with a view to assessing the reliability of the assembly and
annotation.

Means of reviewing reliability include: (a) noting the color coding of the contigs according to
whether the sequence is draft or finished (this primarily applies to the human sequence); (b)
noting the descriptions of the genes, STS, or SNPs to determine whether the element has been
placed more than once; (c) checking that the STS order is the same on different maps; and
(d) viewing features from different coordinate systems on the same map, e.g., showing STS
features on the sequence (nucleotide coordinates), RH (cRay coordinates), and genetic maps
(centiMorgan coordinates) to check for ambiguities. For more information, see the Pipeline
FAQ /genome/guide/BuildFAQ.html.
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 24
The NCBI Handbook

Table 3
Web sites of interest
Map Viewers

 Ensembl www.ensembl.org

 NCBI MapViewer www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview

 UCSC Genome Browser www. genome.ucsc.edu

 Sequencing Information

 NHGRI Sequencing Information www.nhgri.nih.gov/Data/

 Celera Genomics www.celera.com

Analysis tools

 BLAT http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgBlat?command=start
The NCBI Handbook

 BLAST http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/

 e-PCR http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ sts/epcr.cgi

 Sim4 (mRNA to genomic alignment tool) http://globin.cse.psu.edu/

 Spidey (mRNA to genomic alignment tool) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/spidey

 SSAHA http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Software/analysis/SSAHA/

 RepeatMasker http://repeatmasker.genome.washington.edu/cgi-bin/RepeatMasker

 Maps

 BAC FingerPrint Map http://genome.wustl.edu/gsc/human/Mapping/

 Other Annotation Sources and Viewers

 Celera Genomics http://www.celera.com

 DAS http://www.biodas.org

 DoubleTwist http://www.doubletwist.com
The NCBI Handbook

 The Genome Channel http://compbio.ornl.gov/channel/

 Incyte Genomics http://www.incyte.com

 FTP Sites

 Ensembl ftp.ensembl.org/pub/current/data/

 NCBI ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.nih.gov/genomes/H_sapiens/

 UCSC ftp.genome.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath

References
1. Schuler GD. Electronic PCR: bridging the gap between genome mapping and genome sequencing.
Trends Biotechnol 1998;16(11):456–459. [PubMed: 9830153]
2. The BAC Resource Consortium. Integration of cytogenetic landmarks into the draft sequence of the
human genome. Nature 2001;409:953–958. [PubMed: 11237021]
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

UniGene: A Unified View of the Transcriptome

[Chapter 21]

Joan U. Pontius
Lukas Wagner
Gregory D. Schuler

Summary
The NCBI Handbook

The task of assembling an inventory of all genes of Homo sapiens and other organisms began more
than a decade ago with large-scale survey sequencing of transcribed sequences. The resulting
Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) were a gold mine of novel gene sequences that provided an
infrastructure for additional large-scale projects, such as gene maps, expression systems, and full-
length cDNA projects. In addition, untold numbers of targeted gene-hunting projects have benefited
from the availability of these sequences and the physical clone reagents. However, the high level of
redundancy found among transcribed sequences, not to mention a variety of common experimental
artifacts, made it difficult for many people to make effective use of the data. This problem was the
motivation for the development of UniGene, a largely automated analytical system for producing an
organized view of the transcriptome. In this chapter, we discuss the properties of the input sequences,
the process by which they are analyzed in UniGene, and some pointers on how to use the resource.

Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs)

At a time when the genomes of many species have been sequenced completely, a fundamental
The NCBI Handbook

resource expected by many researchers is a simple list of all of an organism's genes. A gene
list, together with associated physical reagents and electronic information, allows one to begin
to investigate the ways in which many genes interact in the complex system of the organism.
However, many species of medical and agricultural importance have not yet been prioritized
for genomic sequencing, and expressed cDNAs have provided the primary source of gene
sequences. Furthermore, when the genomic sequence of an organism becomes available, a
collection of cDNA sequences provides the best tool for identifying genes within the DNA
sequence. Thus, we can anticipate that the sequencing of transcribed products will remain a
significant area of interest well into the future.

The era of high-throughput cDNA sequencing was initiated in 1991 by a landmark study from
Venter and his colleagues (1). The basic strategy involves selecting cDNA clones at random
and performing a single, automated, sequencing read from one or both ends of their inserts.
They introduced the term EST to refer to this new class of sequence, which is characterized
by being short (typically about 400–600 bases) and relatively inaccurate (around 2% error).
The NCBI Handbook

The use of single-pass sequencing was an important aspect of making the approach cost
effective. In most cases, there is no initial attempt to identify or characterize the clones. Instead,
they are identified using only the small bit of sequence data obtained, comparing it to the
sequences of known genes and other ESTs. It is fully expected that many clones will be
redundant with others already sampled and that a smaller number will represent various sorts
of contaminants or cloning artifacts. There is little point in incurring the expense of high-quality
sequencing until later in the process, when clones can be validated and a non-redundant set
selected.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Despite their fragmentary and inaccurate nature, ESTs were found to be an invaluable resource
for the discovery of new genes, particularly those involved in human disease processes (2,3).
After the initial demonstration of the utility and cost effectiveness of the EST approach, many
similar projects were initiated, resulting in an ever-increasing number of human ESTs (4–8).
In addition, large-scale EST projects were launched for several other organisms of
experimental interest. In 1992, a database called dbEST (9) was established to serve as a
collection point for ESTs, which are then distributed to the scientific community as the EST
division of GenBank (10). The EST division continues to dominate GenBank, accounting for
roughly two-thirds of all submissions. The 20 organisms with the largest numbers of ESTs in
the public database (as of March 7, 2002) are shown in Table 1.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Table 1
Top 20 organisms in dbEST (as of March 7, 2002)
Organism ESTs

Homo sapiens (human) 4,070,035

Mus musculus (mouse) 2,522,776

Rattus norvegicus (rat) 326,707

Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) 255,456

Glycine max (soybean) 234,900

Bos taurus (cow) 230,256

Danio rerio (zebrafish) 197,630

Xenopus laevis (African clawed frog) 197,565

The NCBI Handbook

Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode) 191,268

Lycopersicon esculentum (tomato) 148,338

Zea mays (maize) 147,658

Medicago truncatula (barrel medic) 137,588

Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) 113,330

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 112,489

Hordeum vulgare (barley) 104,803

Oryza sativa (rice) 104,284

Sus scrofa (pig) 103,321

Anopheles gambiae (mosquito) 88,963

Ciona intestinalis (sea squirt) 88,742

Sorghum bicolor (sorghum) 84,712

The NCBI Handbook

One avenue to gene discovery is to use a database search tool, such as BLAST (11), to perform
a sequence similarity search against dbEST. The query for such a search would be a gene or
protein sequence, perhaps from a model organism, that is expected to be related to the human
gene of interest. Because clone identifiers are carried with the sequence tags, it is possible to
obtain the original material to generate a more accurate sequence or to use as an experimental
reagent. For many EST projects, the IMAGE consortium (12) has been particularly
instrumental in collecting the cDNA libraries, arraying the clones, and making the clones
available for sequencing and redistribution.

For EST sequencing to be maximally productive, certain details of the library construction
require some attention. For example, normalization procedures have been used to reduce the
abundance of highly expressed genes so as to favor the sampling of rarer transcripts (13). More
recently, subtraction techniques have been used to construct libraries depleted of clones already
subjected to EST sampling (14). Although these techniques make it more efficient to find
The NCBI Handbook

transcripts that are at low abundance in a particular tissue, it is possible that a small number of
genes will still be missed because they are simply not expressed in tissues, cell types, and
developmental stages that have been sampled.

Although ESTs are a useful way to identify clones of interest and provide guidance in
identifying gene structure, a full-insert sequence of cDNA clones is preferable for both
purposes. High-throughput full-insert cDNA sequencing projects have been the source of over
80,000 sequence submissions accessioned to date (August 2002). The full-insert cDNA

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

sequence can allow identification of the translation product of the sequenced transcript, as well
as potentially providing evidence for gene structure. Moreover, for the investigator wanting to
use the clone as a reagent, having the accurate and complete sequence of the clone's insert at
hand makes complete resequencing unnecessary, if the full-insert cDNA sequencing project
makes clones available. Verifying that the full-insert sequence corresponds to either the
complete transcript of interest or to its complete, uncorrupted coding sequence is possible
without committing laboratory resources and time to a clone that produced an EST. cDNA
libraries do not generally include the entire transcript sequence; therefore, many full-insert
sequences do not contain the entire transcription unit. Large transcripts (>6 kb) are particularly
difficult to obtain.

Sequence Clusters
The sheer number of transcribed sequences is extraordinary, indeed for most organisms much
larger than the number of genes. A major challenge is to make putative gene assignments for
The NCBI Handbook

these sequences, recognizing that many of these genes will be anonymous, defined only by the
sequences themselves. Computationally, this can be thought of as a clustering problem in which
the sequences are vertices that may be coalesced into clusters by establishing connections
among them.

Experience has shown that it is important to eliminate low-quality or apparently artifactual

sequences before clustering because even a small level of noise can have a large corrupting
effect on a result. Thus, procedures are in place to eliminate sequences of foreign origin (most
commonly Escherichia coli) and identify regions that are derived from the cloning vector or
artificial primers or linkers. At present, UniGene focuses on protein-coding genes of the nuclear
genome; therefore, those identified as rRNA or mitochondrial sequence are eliminated.
Through the NCBI Trace Archive, an increasing number of EST sequences now have base-
level error probabilities that are used to identify the highest quality segment of each sequence.
Repetitive sequences sometimes lead to false alignments and must be treated with caution.
Simple repeats (low-complexity regions) are identified using a word-overrepresentation
The NCBI Handbook

algorithm called DUST, and transposable repetitive elements are identified by comparison with
a library of known repeats for each organism. Rather than eliminating them outright,
subsequences classified as repetitive are “soft-masked”, which is to say that they are not
allowed to initiate a sequence alignment, although they may participate in one that is triggered
within a unique sequence. For a sequence to be included in UniGene, the clone insert must
have at least 100 base pairs that are of high quality and not repetitive.

With a given a set of sequences, a variety of different sources of information may be used as
evidence that any pair of them is or is not derived from the same gene. The most obvious type
of relationship would be one in which the sequences overlap and can form a near-perfect
sequence alignment. One dilemma is that some level of mismatching should be tolerated
because of known levels of base substitution errors in ESTs, whereas allowing too much
mismatching will cause highly similar paralogous genes to cluster together. One way to
improve the results is to require that alignments show an approximate “dovetail” relationship,
which is to say that they extend about as far to the ends of the sequences as possible. Values
of specific parameters governing acceptable sequence alignments are chosen by examining
The NCBI Handbook

ratios of true to false connections in curated test sets. It is important to note that the resulting
clusters may contain more than one alternative-splice form.

Multiple incomplete but non-overlapping fragments of the same gene are frequently recognized
in hindsight when the gene's complete sequence is submitted. To minimize the frequency of
multiple clusters being identified for a single gene, UniGene clusters are required to contain
at least one sequence carrying readily identifiable evidence of having reached the 3′ terminus.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

In other words, UniGene clusters must be anchored at the 3′ end of a transcription unit. This
evidence can be either a canonical polyadenylation signal (15) or the presence of a poly(A) tail
on the transcript, or the presence of at least two ESTs labeled as having been generated using
the 3′ sequencing primer. Because some clusters do not contain such evidence (typically, they
are single ESTs), not all uncontaminated sequences in dbEST appear in UniGene clusters. Of
course, alternatively spliced terminal 3′ exons will appear as distinct clusters until sequence
that spans the distinct splice forms is submitted. With the availability of genome sequence, a
more stringent test of 3′ anchoring is possible, because internal priming can be recognized.
Clusters that satisfy this more-stringent requirement can be identified by adding the term
“has_end” to any query. Specific query possibilities such as this one are listed under the rubric
Query Tips on the UniGene homepage.

The UniGene Web site allows the user to view UniGene information on a per cluster, per
sequence, or per library basis. Each UniGene Web page (Figure 1) includes a header with a
query bar and a sidebar providing links to related online resources. UniGene is also the basis
The NCBI Handbook

for three other NCBI resources: ProtEST, a facility for browsing protein similarities; Digital
Differential Display (DDD), for comparison of EST-based expression profiles; and
HomoloGene, which provides information about putative homology relationships.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Cluster view
A Web view of the UniGene cluster representing the human serine proteinase inhibitor gene
SERPINF2 is shown.

UniGene Cluster Browser

The UniGene Cluster page summarizes the sequences in the cluster and a variety of derived
information that may be used to infer the identity of the gene. Figure 1 shows an example of
such a view for the human SERPINF2 gene. When available, links are provided to a
The NCBI Handbook

corresponding entry in other NCBI resources (e.g., LocusLink, OMIM) or external databases
[e.g., Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) at the Jackson Laboratory and the Zebrafish
Information Network (ZFIN) at the University of Oregon]. Additional sections on the page
provide protein similarities, mapping data, expression information, and lists of the clustered
sequences.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook

Possible protein products for the gene are suggested by providing protein similarities between
one representative sequence from the cluster and protein sequences from eight selected model
organisms. For each organism, the protein with the highest degree of sequence similarity to
the nucleotide sequence is listed, with its title and GenBank Accession number. The sequence
alignment is described using the percent identity and length of the aligned region. Also provided
is a link to ProtEST, which summarizes the UniGene protein similarities on a per protein basis.

The next section summarizes information on the inferred map position of the gene. In some
cases, chromosome assignments can be drawn from other databases, such as OMIM or MGI.
In other cases, radiation hybrid (RH) maps have been constructed using Sequence Tagged Site
(STS) markers derived from ESTs. In these cases, the UniGene cluster can be associated with
a marker in the UniSTS database, and a map position can be assigned from the RH map. More
recently, map positions have been derived by alignment of the cDNA sequences to the finished
or draft genomic sequences present in the NCBI MapViewer. For example, the SERPINF2
gene in Figure 1 has a link to human chromosome 17 in the Map Viewer. The map is initially
The NCBI Handbook

shown with a few selected tracks that are likely to be of interest, but others may be added by
the user.

Although ESTs are a poor probe of gene expression, both the total number of ESTs and the
tissues from which they originated are often useful. Both of these are displayed in the cluster
browser. The tissues are listed under Expression Information, which includes the tissue source
of libraries of the component sequences and, for human, links to the SAGE resource. Moreover,
if genomic sequence is available, the UniGene map view displays expression for each exon
(more precisely, for each portion of genome similar to a transcript; because incompletely
processed mRNAs are not unheard of, the presence of a transcript is insufficient to identify an
exon).

The component sequences of the cluster are listed, with a brief description of each one and a
link to its UniGene Sequence page. The Sequence page provides more detailed information
about the individual sequence, and in the case of ESTs, includes a link to its corresponding
The NCBI Handbook

UniGene Library page. On the Cluster page, the EST clones that are considered by the
Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project to be putatively full length are listed at the top,
whereas others follow in order of their reported insert length. At the bottom of the UniGene
Cluster page is an option for the user to download the sequences of the cluster in FASTA
format.

Protein Similarity Analysis

The ProtEST section of UniGene allows the user to explore precomputed protein similarities
for the cDNA sequences found in a cluster. The BLASTX program has been used to compare
each sequence in UniGene to selected protein sequences drawn from eight model organisms:
Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Danio rerio, Drosophila melanogaster,
Caenorhabditis elegans, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These species
were chosen as spanning a variety of taxonomic classes, as well as being well represented in
the protein databases. To exclude proteins that are strictly conceptual translations and models,
the proteins used in ProtEST are those originating from the RefSeq, SWISS-PROT, PIR, PDB,
The NCBI Handbook

or PRF databases.

The ProtEST Web site has three features: information describing the amino acid sequence;
information describing the nucleotide–protein alignments; and the ability for the user to modify
various display options. The sequence alignments in ProtEST are summarized in tabular form
(Figure 2). The first column is a schematic representation of the nucleotide–protein alignment.
The width of the column represents the entire length of the protein, whereas the unaligned
nucleotide sequence is represented as a thin gray line and the aligned region is represented as

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

a thick magenta bar. The alignment representation is a hyperlink to the full alignment
regenerated on-the-fly using BLAST. Other information in the table includes the frame and
strand of the alignment, a link to the corresponding trace as provided in the NCBI Trace
Archive, the UniGene cluster ID, the GenBank Accession number, and columns that describe
the aligned region and percent identity.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

ProtEST view
A view of protein similarities for the human SERPINF2 gene, found by BLASTX searching
of a selected subset of the protein database, is shown.

To further refine the view, the sequence alignments in the table can be sorted by: (a) percent
identity; (b) alignment length; (c) beginning coordinate of the alignment; (d) ending coordinate
of the alignment; (e) UniGene cluster ID; or (f) GenBank Accession number. It is also possible
to omit various rows of the table by restricting the display to a chosen organism or by choosing
a cut-off value for the percent identity of the alignment and the length of the alignment.

Digital Differential Display (DDD)

DDD is a tool for comparing EST-based expression profiles among the various libraries, or
pools of libraries, represented in UniGene. These comparisons allow the identification of those
genes that differ among libraries of different tissues, making it possible to determine which
genes may be contributing to a cell's unique characteristics, e.g., those that make a muscle cell
The NCBI Handbook

different from a skin or liver cell. Along similar lines, DDD can be used to try to identify genes
for which the expression levels differ between normal, premalignant, and cancerous tissues or
different stages of embryonic development.

As in UniGene, the DDD resource is organism specific and is available from the UniGene
Web site for that organism. For those libraries that have sequences in UniGene, DDD lists the
title and tissue source and provides a link to the UniGene Library page, which gives additional
information about the library. From the libraries listed, the user can select two for comparison.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook

DDD then displays those genes for which the frequency of the transcript is significantly
different between the two libraries. The output includes, for each gene, the frequency of its
transcript in each library and the title of the gene's corresponding UniGene cluster. Results are
sorted by significance, with the genes having the largest differences in frequencies displayed
at the top. Libraries can be added sequentially to the analysis, and DDD will perform an analysis
on each possible library–gene pair combination. Similarly, groups of libraries can be pooled
together and compared with other pools or single libraries.

DDD uses the Fisher Exact test to restrict the output to statistically significant differences (P
≤ 0.05). The analysis is also restricted to deeply sequenced libraries; only those with over 1000
sequences in UniGene are included in DDD. These requirements place limitations on the
capabilities of the analysis. Unless there are a large number of sequences in each pool, the
frequencies of genes are generally not found to be statistically significant. Furthermore, the
wide variety of tissue types, cell types, histology, and methods of generating the libraries can
make it difficult to attribute significant differences to any one aspect of the libraries. These
The NCBI Handbook

issues underscore the need for more libraries to be made public and the need for the comparisons
to be made using proper controls. Libaries generated by the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project
(CGAP) will become especially valuable to this end. This project has resulted in a plethora of
human libraries made from a variety of tissue types and generated using a variety of methods.

HomoloGene
HomoloGene is a resource for exploring putative homology relationships among genes,
bringing together curated homology information and results from automated sequence
comparisons. UniGene clusters, supplemented by data from genome sequencing projects, have
been used as a source of gene sequences for automated comparisons.

Homology relationships, according to the experts who judge these, have been obtained from
several sources. Collaborations with MGI and ZFIN at the University of Oregon have provided
a large body of literature-derived data centered around M. musculus and D. rerio, respectively.
Ortholog pairs involving sequences from H. sapiens and M. musculus have been imported from
The NCBI Handbook

the NCBI Human–Mouse Homology Map. Additional information has been extracted from
the literature by NCBI staff specifically for the HomoloGene project.

MegaBLAST (16) is used to perform cross-species sequence alignments and to identify those
sequence pairs that share high degrees of nucleotide similarity. For each sequence, its best
alignment with the sequences of the other organisms is retained. However, the best match for
a sequence is not necessarily the best match for its partner sequence. For example, if there are
several more sequences representing a particular gene in one organism than in the other
organism, several sequences in one organism might have the same best match in the less well-
represented organism. Similarly, if there are several paralogous genes in one species, they may
find one identical homologous gene in another species. HomoloGene discriminates "one-way
best matches" from cases where two sequences are each other's best match, or "reciprocal best
matches", and only these reciprocal best matches are used. These sequence pairs are then used
to find cross-species homologies between UniGene clusters. When reciprocal best matches are
consistent between three or more organisms, the pair is described as being part of a "consistent
The NCBI Handbook

triplet".

The connections made by these methods result in a complex web of relationships. To simplify
the Web view, it is useful to have each report page focus on an individual gene, called the "key
gene", and to show connections that follow from it. An example of the report for the M.
musculus Serpinf2 gene is shown in Figure 3. The title of this key gene is shown at the top of
the page, followed by genes from other species that show reciprocal best match relationships
to the key gene. Each of these may have hypertext links to provide additional biological

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

information about the gene. This is followed by a section providing the curated homology
information (if any), with links to the source of the data. Reciprocal best-match relationships
are listed in the next two sections, first those directly involving the key gene and then those
from a second round of walking that may be of interest. In each case, the description includes
the sequence identifiers and percent identity of the alignment, with a hyperlink to reproduce a
full alignment using BLAST.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

HomoloGene view
Homology information for the mouse Serpinf2 gene, with curated homologies for mouse and
computed homologies extending to rat, zebrafish, and cow, is shown.

References
1. Adams MD, Kelley JM, Gocayne JD, Dubnick M, Polymeropoulos MH, Xiao H, Merril CR, Wu A,
Olde RF, Moreno RF. Complementary DNA sequencing: expressed sequence tags and human genome
The NCBI Handbook

project. Science 1991;252(5013):1651–1656. [PubMed: 2047873]

2. Sikela JM, Auffray C. Finding new genes faster than ever. Nat Genet 1993;3(3):189–191. [PubMed:
8485571]
3. Boguski MS, Tolstoshev CM, Bassett DE Jr. Gene discovery in dbEST. Science 1994;265(5181):1993–
1994. [PubMed: 8091218]
4. Okubo K, Hori N, Matoba R, Niiyama T, Fukushima A, Kojima Y, Matsuba K. Large scale cDNA
sequencing for analysis of quantitative and qualitative aspects of gene expression. Nat Genet 1992;2
(3):173–179. [PubMed: 1345164]

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook

5. Adams MD, Soares MB, Kerlavage AR, Fields C, Venter JC. Rapid cDNA sequencing (expressed
sequence tags) from a directionally cloned human infant brain cDNA library. Nat Genet 1993;4(4):
373–380. [PubMed: 8401585]
6. Houlgatte R, Mariage-Samson R, Duprat S, Tessier A, Bentolia S, Larry B, Auffray C. The Genexpress
Index: a resource for gene discovery and the genic map of the human genome. Genome Res 1995;5
(3):272–304. [PubMed: 8593614]
7. Hillier LD, Lennon G, Becker M, Bonaldo MF, Chiapelli B, Chissoe S, Dietrich N, DuBuque T, Favello
A, Gish W, Hawkins M, Hultman M, Kucaba T, Lacy M, Le M, Le N, Mardis E, Moore B, Parsons
J, Prange C, Rifkin L, Rohlfing T, Schellenberg K, Marra M. Generation and analysis of 280,000
human expressed sequence tags. Genome Res 1996;6(9):807–828. [PubMed: 8889549]
8. Krizman DB, Wagner L, Lash A, Strausberg RL, Emmert-Buck MR. The Cancer Genome Anatomy
Project: EST sequencing and the genetics of cancer progression. Neoplasia 1999;1(2):101–106.
[PubMed: 10933042]1508126
9. Boguski MS, Lowe TM, Tolstoshev CM. dbEST: database for “expressed sequence tags”. Nature Genet
1993;4:332–333. [PubMed: 8401577]
The NCBI Handbook

10. Benson DA, Karsch-Mizrachi I, Lipman DJ, Ostell J, Rapp BA, Wheeler DL. GenBank. Nucleic
Acids Res 2002;30(1):17–20. [PubMed: 11752243]99127
11. Altschul SF, Madden TL, Schaffer AA, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, Lipman DJ. Gapped BLAST
and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res 1997;25
(17):3389–3402. [PubMed: 9254694]146917
12. Lennon G, Auffray C, Polymeropoulos M, Soares MB. The I.M.A.G.E. consortium: an integrated
molecular analysis of genomes and their expression. Genomics 1996;33:151–152. [PubMed:
8617505]
13. Soares MB, Bonaldo MF, Jelene P, Su L, Lawton L, Efstratiadis A. Construction and characterization
of a normalized cDNA library. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1994;91(20):9228–9232. [PubMed:
7937745]44785
14. Bonaldo M, Lennon G, Soares MB. Normalization and subtraction: two approaches to facilitate gene
discovery. Genome Res 1996;6:791–806. [PubMed: 8889548]
15. Wahle E, Keller W. The biochemistry of polyadenylation. Trends Biochem Sci 1996;21(7):247–250.
[PubMed: 8755245]
16. Zhang Z, Schwartz S, Wagner L, Miller W. A greedy algorithm for aligning DNA sequences. J Comput
The NCBI Handbook

Biol 2000;7(1-2):203–214. [PubMed: 10890397]

The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

The Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) Database:

Phylogenetic Classification of Proteins from Complete Genomes
[Chapter 22]

Eugene V. Koonin

Summary
The protein database of Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) is an attempt to phylogenetically
The NCBI Handbook

classify the complete complement of proteins (both predicted and characterized) encoded by
complete genomes. Each COG is a group of three or more proteins that are inferred to be orthologs,
i.e., they are direct evolutionary counterparts. The current release of the COGs database consists of
4,873 COGs, which include 136,711 proteins (~71% of all encoded proteins) from 50 bacterial
genomes, 13 archaeal genomes, and 3 genomes of unicellular eukaryotes, the yeasts Saccharomyces
cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and the microsporidian Encephalitozoon cuniculi. The
COG database is updated periodically as new genomes become available. The COGs for complete
eukaryotic genomes are in preparation. The COGs can be applied to the task of functional annotation
of newly sequenced genomes by using the COGnitor program, which is available on the COGs
homepage.

Introduction
The recent progress in genome sequencing has led to a rapid enrichment of protein databases
with an unprecedented variety of deduced protein sequences, most of them without a
The NCBI Handbook

documented functional role. Computational biology strives to extract the maximal possible
information from these sequences by classifying them according to their homologous
relationships, predicting their likely biochemical activities and/or cellular functions, three-
dimensional structures, and evolutionary origin. This challenge is daunting, given that even in
Escherichia coli, arguably the best-studied organism, only about 40% of the gene products
have been characterized experimentally. However, computational analysis of complete
microbial genomes has shown that prokaryotic proteins are, in general, highly conserved, with
about 70% of them containing ancient conserved regions shared by homologs from distantly
related species. This allows one to use functional information from experimentally
characterized proteins to suggest function in their homologs from poorly studied organisms.
For such functional predictions to be reliable, it is critical to infer orthologous relationships
between genes from different species. Orthologs are evolutionary counterparts related by
vertical descent (i.e., they have evolved from a common ancestor) as opposed to paralogs,
which are genes related by duplication (1,2). Typically, orthologous proteins have the same
domain architecture and the same function, although there are significant exceptions and
The NCBI Handbook

complications to this generalization, particularly among multicellular eukaryotes.

The COGs database has been designed as an attempt to classify proteins from completely
sequenced genomes on the basis of the orthology concept (3–5). The COGs reflect one-to-
many and many-to-many orthologous relationships as well as simple one-to-one relationships
(hence, orthologous groups of proteins). In addition to the classification itself, the COGs Web
site includes the COGnitor program, which assigns proteins from newly sequenced genomes
to COGs that already exist and to several functionalities that allow the user to select and analyze
various subsets of COGs.
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

Construction of the COGs

COGs have been identified on the basis of an all-against-all sequence comparison of the
proteins encoded in complete genomes using the gapped BLAST program (6; see also Chapter
16) after masking low-complexity (7) and predicted coiled-coil (8) regions. The COG
construction procedure is based on the simple notion that any group of at least three proteins
from distant genomes that are more similar to each other than they are to any other proteins
from the same genomes are most likely to form an orthologous set (Figure 1). This prediction
holds even if the absolute level of sequence similarity between the proteins in question is
relatively low, and thus the COG approach accommodates both slow-evolving and fast-
evolving genes.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Example of a COG: monoamine oxidase

The COG for monoamine oxidase currently contains eight proteins from seven different
organisms: one each from Deinococcus radiodurans (DRA0274), Mycobacterium
tuberculosis (Rv3170), Bacillus subtilis (BS_yobN), Synechocystis (slr0782), Pseudomonas
aeruginosa (PA0421), and Mesorhizobium loti (mll3668), and two paralogs from Caulobacter
crescentus (CC2793 and CC1091). This is the only COG in the COGs database that has this
phylogenetic pattern. In humans, monoamine oxidase is an enzyme of the mitochondrial outer
The NCBI Handbook

membrane that seems to be involved in the metabolism of antibiotics and neurologically active
agents and is a target for one class of antidepressant drugs.

Briefly, COG construction includes the following steps:

1 Perform the all-against-all protein sequence comparison.
2 Detect and collapse obvious paralogs, i.e., proteins from the same genome that are
more similar to each other than to any proteins from other species.
3 Detect triangles of mutually consistent, genome-specific best hits (BeTs), taking into
account the paralogous groups detected at step 2.
4 Merge triangles with a common side to form COGs.
5 Perform a case-by-case analysis of each COG. This analysis serves to eliminate false-
positives and to identify groups that contain multidomain proteins by examining the
pictorial representation of the BLAST search outputs. The sequences of detected
multidomain proteins are split into single-domain segments, and steps 1–4 are
The NCBI Handbook

repeated with the resulting shorter sequences, which assigns individual domains to
COGs in accordance with their distinct evolutionary affinities.
6 Examine large COGs that include multiple members from all or several of the
genomes using phylogenetic trees, cluster analysis, and visual inspection of
alignments. As a result, some of these groups are split into two or more smaller ones
that are included in the final set of COGs.

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

By the design of this procedure, a minimal COG includes three genes from distinct phylogenetic
lineages; protein sets from closely related species were merged before COG construction. The
approach used for the construction of COGs does not supplant a comprehensive phylogenetic
analysis. Nevertheless, it provides a fast and convenient shortcut to delineate a large number
of families that most likely consist of orthologs.

The COGnitor Program

New proteins can be assigned to the COGs using the COGnitor program, the principal tool
associated with the COGs database. COGnitor “BLASTs” the query sequences against all
protein sequences encoded in the genomes that are classified in the current release of the COG
system. To assign proteins to COGs, COGnitor applies the same principle that is embedded in
the COG construction procedure, i.e., the consistency of genome-specific BeTs. For any given
query protein, if the number of BeTs for a particular COG exceeds a predefined cut-off (three
by default; the cut-off value can be changed by the user), the query protein is assigned to that
The NCBI Handbook

COG; in cases where there are more than three BeTs to two different COGs, an ambiguous
result is reported.

The Current State of the COGs Database, Updates, and Additional Classification of the COGs
Once the COGs have been identified using the above procedure, new members can be added
using the COGnitor program. The assignments are further checked and curated by hand to
eliminate potential false-positives. It has been shown that 95–97% of the COGnitor
assignments typically require no correction (9). Once the proteins from a new genome are
assigned to the appropriate pre-existing COGs through this combination of COGnitor and
manual refinement, the remaining proteins from this genome are compared to the proteins from
non-COG proteins from previously available genomes, and an attempt is made to construct
new COGs using the original procedure. In addition, when new sequences are added to an
exisiting COG, the COG is examined for the possibility of a split (isolation of a new COG) by
inspecting BLAST search outputs for all COG members and, in some cases, phylogenetic tree
analysis. Thus, the number of COGs continuously grows through the construction of new COGs
The NCBI Handbook

that typically include just a small number of species, whereas the number of proteins in the
COG system increases primarily through the addition of new members to pre-existing COGs.

In bacterial and archaeal genomes, approximately 70% of the proteins typically belong to the
COGs. Because each COG includes proteins from at least three distantly related species, this
reveals the generally high level of evolutionary conservation of protein sequences, making the
COGs a powerful tool for functional annotation of uncharacterized proteins. The COGs were
classified into 18 functional categories that loosely follow those introduced by Riley (10) and
also include a class for which only a general functional prediction (e.g., that of biochemical
activity) was feasible, as well as a class of uncharacterized COGs. A significant majority of
the COGs could be assigned to one of the well-defined functional categories, but the single
largest class includes the functionally uncharacterized COGs. Additionally, the COGs were
clustered according to the common metabolic pathways and macromolecular complexes.

Phyletic Pattern Analysis in COGs

The NCBI Handbook

A phyletic pattern is the pattern of species that are represented or not represented in a given
COG; alternatively, phyletic patterns can be described in terms of the sets of COGs that are
represented in a given range of species. The COGs show a broad diversity of phyletic patterns;
only a small fraction are universal COGs, i.e., they are represented in all sequenced genomes,
whereas COGs present in only three or four species are most abundant. This patchy distribution
of phyletic patterns probably reflects the major role of horizontal gene transfer and lineage-
specific gene loss in the evolution of prokaryotes, as well as the rapid evolution of certain genes

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

in specific lineages, which may be linked to functional changes. Phyletic patterns are
informative not only as indicators of probable evolutionary scenarios but also functionally;
most often, different steps of the same pathway are associated with proteins that have the same
phyletic pattern, whereas on some occasions, complementary patterns indicate that distinct
(sometimes unrelated) proteins are responsible for the same function in different sets of species.
The COG system includes a simple phyletic pattern search tool that allows the selection of
COGs according to any given pattern of species. This tool effectively provides the functionality
of “differential genome display” (for example, allowing the selection of all COGs that are
present in one, but not the other, of a pair of genomes of interest) and can be helpful for
delineating sets of candidate proteins for a particular range of functional features, e.g., virulence
or hyperthermophily.

Description of the COGs Website

The main COGs Web page contains the following principal features: (a) a list of all COGs
The NCBI Handbook

organized by the (predicted) functional category; (b) separate lists of COGs for each functional
category and for a variety of major pathways and functional systems; (c) a table of co-
occurrences of genomes in COGs; (d) a list of COGs organized by phyletic patterns; (e) the
phyletic patterns search tool; (f) the COGnitor program; (g) a search engine to search COGs
for gene names, COG numbers, and arbitrary text; and (h) Help, which covers the principal
subjects related to COGs.

The individual COG pages can be reached from any of the COG lists mentioned above or by
searching the site (see, for example, the COG for exonuclease I). Each of the COG pages shows
the respective phyletic pattern in a table that also gives the ID number for the contributing
sequence(s), a cluster dendrogram generated using the BLAST scores as the measure of
similarity between proteins, and a graphical representation of BeTs for the given COG (not
shown for the largest COGs). Also, each of the COG pages is hyperlinked to: (a) pictorial
representations of BLAST search outputs for each member of the COG, which also includes
links to the respective GenBank and Entrez-Genomes entries (see, for example, the link from
The NCBI Handbook

XF2022, the protein from Xyella fastidiosa in the exonuclease I COG); (b) a multiple
alignment of the COG members produced automatically using the ClustalW program (11);
(c) a FASTA library of the protein sequences that belong to the COG (represented by the floppy
disc icon); (d) the respective functional category of COGs and pathway (functional system) if
applicable (in this exonuclease I example, the functional category L represents proteins
involved in DNA replication, recombination, and repair); (e) a COG information page that
includes functional, evolutionary, and structural information on the COG and its members
(many of these pages are still under construction); (f) other COGs that include distinct domains
of multidomain proteins that belong to the given COG through one of their domains; and (g)
the Genome Context tool that shows the gene neighborhood around the given COG for all
genomes that encode proteins of the given COG.

The COG data set and the COGnitor program also are available by anonymous ftp at ftp://
ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/pub/COG.

Future Directions
The NCBI Handbook

Substantial evolution of the COGs is expected in the near future in terms of both growth by
adding more genomes and the addition of new functionalities and layers of presentation.
Quantitatively, the main forthcoming addition is the COGs for eukaryotic genomes, which are
expected to approximately double the size of the COG system. Many of the COGs include
paralogous proteins, and this will be addressed by introducing hierarchical organization into
the COG system, whereby related COGs will be unified at a higher level. In addition, partial
integration of the COGs with the NCBI's Conserved Domains Database (CDD) is expected

Querying and Linking the Data

 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

(Chapter 3), which will result in a more flexible and informative representation of the domain
organization of proteins and of structural information that is available for COG members.

The COG Team

The COG system is developed and maintained by a team of programmers and expert biologists.

Project leader: Eugene V. Koonin.

The programming group: Roman L. Tatusov (group leader), Boris Kiryutin, Victor Smirnov,
and Alexander Sverdlov (student)

The annotation group: Darren A. Natale (group leader), Natalie Fedorova, Anastasia
Nikolskaya, Aviva Jacobs, Jodie Yin, B. Sridhar Rao, Dmitri M. Krylov, Sergei Mekhedov,
John Jackson, Raja Mazumder, and Sona Vasudevan
The NCBI Handbook

References
1. Fitch WM. Distinguishing homologous from analogous proteins. Syst Zool 1970;19:99–106. [PubMed:
5449325]
2. Fitch WM. Homology: a personal view on some of the problems. Trends Genet 2000;16:227–231.
[PubMed: 10782117]
3. Tatusov RL, Koonin EV, Lipman DJ. A genomic perspective on protein families. Science
1997;278:631–637. [PubMed: 9381173]
4. Tatusov RL, Galperin MY, Natale DA, Koonin EV. The COG database: a tool for genome-scale
analysis of protein functions and evolution. Nucleic Acids Res 2000;28:33–36. [PubMed:
10592175]102395
5. Tatusov RL, Natale DA, Garkavtsev IV, Tatusova TA, Shankavaram UT, Rao BS, Kiryutin B, Galperin
MY, Fedorova ND, Koonin EV. The COG database: new developments in phylogenetic classification
of proteins from complete genomes. Nucleic Acids Res 2001;29:22–28. [PubMed: 11125040]29819
6. Altschul SF, Madden TL, Schaffer AA, Zhang J, Zhang Z, Miller W, Lipman DJ. Gapped BLAST and
The NCBI Handbook

PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res 1997;25:3389–
3402. [PubMed: 9254694]146917
7. Wootton JC, Federhen S. Analysis of compositionally biased regions in sequence databases. Methods
Enzymol 1996;266:554–571. [PubMed: 8743706]
8. Lupas A, Van Dyke M, Stock J. Predicting coiled coils from protein sequences. Science
1991;252:1162–1164. [PubMed: 2031185]
9. NataleDAShankavaramUTGalperinMYWolfYIAravindLKooninEVGenome annotation using
clusters of orthologous groups of proteins (COGs)—towards understanding the first genome of a
Crenarchaeon. Genome Biolin press. [PubMed: 11178258]
10. Riley M. Functions of the gene products of Escherichia coli. Microbiol Rev 1993;57:862–952.
[PubMed: 7508076]372942
11. Thompson JD, Higgins DG, Gibson TJ. CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive
multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight
matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Res 1994;22:4673–4680. [PubMed: 7984417]308517
The NCBI Handbook

Querying and Linking the Data

The NCBI Handbook

User Services: Helping You Find Your Way

[Chapter 23]

David Wheeler
Barbara Rapp

Summary
The User Services team is the primary liaison between the public and the resources and data at NCBI.
The NCBI Handbook

User Services disseminates information through outreach training programs and exhibits at scientific
conferences and responds to incoming questions by email and telephone assistance. The team
instructs people in the use of NCBI resources, responds to a wide range of questions, receives
comments and suggestions, and coordinates with the NCBI resource developers to implement
suggestions from users. In addition, User Services develops documentation, tutorials, and other
support materials; produces the NCBI News; and publishes articles on NCBI resources.

The User Services Team

User Services consists of a staff of scientists and information specialists with diverse
backgrounds and experiences. Scientist members of the staff hold Masters or Ph.D. degrees in
an area of molecular biology, biochemistry, or biotechnology. Information specialists have
Masters degrees in Library and Information Science and extensive experience using online
databases of scientific information.
The NCBI Handbook

The Help Desk

Help Desk assistance is available from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through
Friday. Two email addresses are available, [email protected] and blast-
[email protected]. The [email protected] address is for any type of inquiry,
including questions about services; how to get started using the NCBI tools for a particular
research problem; reports of technical problems; press inquiries; and comments or suggestions
about NCBI resources. The [email protected] address is for questions and
comments regarding sequence similarity searches using BLAST tools and databases. The Help
Desk phone number is 301-496-2475.

email questions are answered as expeditiously as possible, usually within a day of receipt of
the question. However, those that require extended investigation may take longer. Questions
are usually handled directly by members of the User Services staff, although some are referred
to a specific database development team for attention.

Examples of question topics include: data submission protocols, including the use of BankIt
The NCBI Handbook

and Sequin (Chapter 12); finding summary information about a gene or disease; using Entrez
(Chapter 15) to find sequence records for genes and proteins; choosing the best BLAST service
to use for a particular application (Chapter 16); how to interpret BLAST results; how to display
and manipulate three-dimensional structures with Cn3D (Chapter 3); how to display genome
data using the Map Viewer (Chapter 20); how to print or save search output; how to set up
sequence databases and install NCBI software locally; and which databases to use for a specific
research question. We also accept reports of possible data errors, suggestions of new features
or content to include in databases, and reports of system bugs or Web problems. The NCBI
also receives a number of press inquiries about the research applications of our services,
bioinformatics in general, and various genome projects. Occasionally, a high-school student
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

will submit questions for a classroom assignment, providing a special outreach opportunity to
young scientists.

Because of the genetic focus of many of NCBI resources, we receive a number of questions
from the general public regarding medical issues. The NCBI Help Desk staff can neither
provide direct answers to medical questions nor give medical advice or guidance. However,
we do provide suggestions on how to search our resources for information on the gene or
condition of interest and refer users to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) customer
service group for further assistance with PubMed (Chapter 2), MEDLINEplus, and
ClinicalTrials.gov. We also refer them to outside organizations that can provide information
on such topics as support groups and sources of medical advice.

Questions about PubMed are handled by a separate customer service group within the NLM.
Their direct address is [email protected], and their phone number is 1-888-FIND-NLM.
PubMed questions that are received at the NCBI Help Desk are forwarded to NLM.
The NCBI Handbook

Development of User Support Materials

Because of its ongoing personal contact with our users, the User Services group plays an
important role in communicating with database development and production teams, making
suggestions, testing new releases and new features, and keeping them informed of problems
that people are having with the services. The team also collaborates with developers in creating
help documents, frequently asked questions (FAQs), tutorials, and workshop materials.

Tutorials on the Web

Web-based tutorials for BLAST, Entrez, Cn3D, and PubMed are currently available, with
additional topics under development. Tutorials are produced on a collaborative basis by
database development and User Services staff.

About NCBI
The NCBI Handbook

In keeping with the “plain language initiative” at NIH, the About NCBI section of the NCBI
Web site presents many fundamentals of NCBI's bioinformatics tools and databases, including
a science primer covering such topics as molecular genetics, genome mapping, Single
Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) (Chapter 5), and microarray technology (Chapter 6). A
model organism guide presents various model organisms and their uses in laboratory settings.
As an introduction and orientation to NCBI's multifaceted Web site, the About NCBI section
appeals to the general public, educators, and researchers alike.

NCBI Site Map

The NCBI Site Map serves as a guide to NCBI resources. It provides a comprehensive, linked
list of resources, along with a brief description of each resource. An effective way to locate a
resource of interest within the Site Map is to perform a Find in Page search, a function that is
built into all commonly used Web browsers.

Publications
The NCBI Handbook

The NCBI News is a quarterly newsletter that includes articles on new services, new features,
and basic research at NCBI, as well as how to use selected resources for common applications.
The newsletter is available free of charge and is offered online and by print subscription.

The User Services group also prepares fact sheets, brochures, and other public information
materials to describe and illustrate NCBI services. A list of available materials is provided in
the About NCBI section of the Web site, under News.

User Support
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook

Overview articles entitled GenBank and Database Resources of the NCBI have also been
published recently in the annual database issues of Nucleic Acids Research (1-3).

Outreach
NCBI's continuing emphasis on outreach to the scientific community is evident in its
multifaceted program that includes exhibiting its services at scientific meetings, offering a
variety of training courses, and developing Web-based tutorials and workshops.

Exhibits at Scientific Meetings

NCBI exhibits at approximately 15 scientific meetings per year, providing an opportunity for
a wide range of researchers, students, and teachers to see demonstrations of NCBI resources
and interact directly with NCBI staff. The current exhibit schedule is posted on the NCBI Web
site in the About NCBI section, under NCBI at a Glance.
The NCBI Handbook

Workshops are offered at select scientific meetings and include the standing workshops
described below in the Training section, but workshops also can be customized for particular
audiences. Meeting organizers who would like to invite NCBI to offer a workshop are
encouraged to do so.

Training Courses
NCBI has a growing training program consisting of full-day, half-day, and two-hour courses
that are usually a combination of lecture and computer-based formats. There are also advanced
courses that are given over a more extended time period. Each is described briefly below, and
further information on the training programs can be found in the Education section of the Web
site, under NCBI Courses.

A Field Guide to GenBank and Other NCBI Resources

A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources is a training course offered
The NCBI Handbook

in a lecture format, followed by hands-on computer sessions. It is designed as a basic but broad
introduction to NCBI tools and resources.

Field Guide topics include the following: description and scope of the primary database,
GenBank (Chapter 1); derivative databases, such as UniGene (Chapter 21), Entrez Gene
(Chapter 19), and Reference Sequence (RefSeq) (Chapter 18); effective database searching
using Entrez; NCBI structure databases and the structure viewer, Cn3D; sequence similarity
searching using the BLAST programs; the Conserved Domain Database (CDD) and associated
search engine; and genome resources, including the NCBI assembly of the draft human
genome, access to both finished and unfinished microbial genomes, and the genome Map
Viewer.

The course is offered by invitation at academic institutions as well as at selected scientific

conferences. If you are interested in hosting a course at your institution or conference, write
to [email protected], and your request will be routed to the course coordinator.
The NCBI Handbook

The course is also offered four times a year at the NLM on the NIH campus in Bethesda,
Maryland, and is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.

More information on this course is available in the Education section of the NCBI Web site,
under NCBI Courses. The Web site includes the course handout, slide presentations, and
problem sets with answers. A schedule of planned courses at NLM and elsewhere is posted
under Upcoming Courses.

User Support
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Molecular Biology Information Resources

This course is designed primarily for medical and science librarians or other professionals who
are providing support services for molecular biology information resources. It provides an
introduction to four categories of molecular biology information available from NCBI:
nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, three-dimensional structures, and complete genomes
and maps. An overview of search systems available at the NCBI, particularly Entrez and
BLAST, emphasizes how search skills related to other types of information resources also
apply to molecular biology databases. The course concludes with a discussion of various levels
of molecular biology information services provided by librarians.

The Medical Library Association approves this course for eight continuing education credit
hours. The course has been given at 24 locations since May 1997. Because of the increase in
NCBI services, courses are being revised and are not being scheduled at this time.

More information on this course is available in the Education section of the NCBI Web site,
The NCBI Handbook

under NCBI Courses. The Web site includes the course materials used for the lecture and a set
of exercises.

NCBI Advanced Workshop for Bioinformatics Information Specialists

A new 5-day advanced course on NCBI resources has been developed as part of a collaborative
project with a group of scientists and librarians who currently provide bioinformatics support
services at their universities. The course provides detailed descriptive information as well as
hands-on experience with handling a wide range of user questions. The course is designed for
bioinformatics support staff based in university medical libraries so that they can, in turn, assist
students, faculty, staff, and clinicians at their institutions in the use of molecular biology
information resources. Additional information on this course is available in the Education
section of the NCBI Web site.

Specialized Mini-Courses
The NCBI Handbook

The Service Desk staff also offers four mini-courses: BLAST QuickStart, Unmasking Genes
in the Human Genome, Making Sense of DNA and Protein Sequences, and GenBank and
PubMed Searching. Each is described briefly below. The purpose of the mini-courses is to
focus on specific research application areas and address how to use multiple NCBI resources
together to answer a research question. Additional problem-oriented mini-courses are under
development.

The courses are 2 hours each in length. An overview is given during the first hour in lecture
format, followed by a 1-hour hands-on session. Although primarily given on the NIH campus,
NCBI is beginning to offer these workshops at outside institutions as well. Although the mini-
courses were originally designed to be presented by an instructor, they are constructed in an
online notebook format; therefore, it is possible to take the course on your own. Revisions to
augment the online notebooks with lecture material and make the courses completely self-
guided are currently under way.

This mini-course is a practical introduction to the BLAST family of sequence-similarity search

The NCBI Handbook

programs. Exercises range from simple searches to creative uses of the BLAST programs.

This mini-course covers how to find genes, promoters, and transcription factor-binding sites
in human DNA sequences. It is designed around a program developed within User Services
called Greengene, which integrates the output of several gene-finding tools and allows a coding
sequence and accompanying protein translation to be assembled from the exons detected by

User Support
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook

these programs. Because the output of several programs is integrated, there is increased
reliability in exon selection.

In this course, participants find a gene within a eukaryotic DNA sequence. They then predict
the function of the derived protein by seeking sequence similarities to proteins with
documented function using BLAST and other tools. Finally, a 3D modeling template is located
for the protein sequence using the Conserved Domain Search (CDD-Search).

During the first hour, an instructor walks the class through an analysis of an uncharacterized
Drosophila melanogaster genomic sequence from a GenBank record. During the second hour,
participants perform the same analysis independently, using a different genomic sequence.

This mini-course provides an overview of literature searching and sequence retrieval using the
PubMed and Entrez database search interfaces. Exercises illustrate advanced search tips for
using Entrez, many of which explore the use of the Preview/Index options for specifying
The NCBI Handbook

parameters to limit the search results. The course also features 21 self-scoring exercises for
GenBank.

The NCBI Learning Center

In addition to communication by email and phone provided through the Help Desk, a regular
research consultation service provides one-on-one support for researchers in the NIH
community. The consults are available by appointment and are provided in 1-hour time slots
at the NIH Library as well as the NCBI training facility. Because of the success of the program,
this type of service may be offered by appointment at selected scientific meetings in the future.

CoreBio
An innovative training program that began in 2001 aims to train molecular biologists for a new
type of career as bioinformatics specialists who provide institutional support for users of
computational biology tools. The NCBI Core Bioinformatics Facility (referred to as the
The NCBI Handbook

CoreBio program) currently functions to train and support a network of bioinformatics

specialists serving individual Institutes at NIH. NCBI's CoreBio facility trains Core members
identified by their respective institutes in the use of its bioinformatics tools. The Core members,
in turn, support the use of NCBI tools and databases by researchers at their institutes.

The training is provided over a 9-week period, with students attending lectures and completing
practical exercises in the morning and returning to their regular workplace in the afternoon.
The coursework centers on one major topic each week and follows the rough schedule given
below:

WEEK 1: Introduction to the Sequence Databases

WEEK 2: BLAST

WEEK 3: The Human Genome

WEEK 4: Genomic Biology

The NCBI Handbook

WEEK 5: Molecular Modeling

WEEK 6: Web Page Development

WEEK 7: Setting Up a BLAST Web Server

User Support
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

WEEK 8: Interaction with Users

WEEK 9: Practicum

During week 9, the students pursue an institute-related project with the assistance of NCBI
instructors. These projects run the gamut from the compilation of specialized datasets and data
mining to the creation of novel BLAST interfaces and the construction of new data display
tools. Students also develop a Web page to support the services they are developing for the
respective Institutes at the NIH.

Although currently a NIH-based program, other organizations are welcome to consider using
the program as a model for development of similar initiatives to meet their bioinformatics
support needs.

Conclusion
The NCBI Handbook

At NCBI, we encourage our users to contact us with questions, suggestions, and requests for
training or presentations on NCBI services. We invite feedback on tutorials, FAQs, and other
support materials and welcome suggestions regarding additional materials that would be useful
in guiding users through the wide range of services offered by NCBI.

References
1. Benson DA, Karsch-Mizrachi I, Lipman DJ, Ostell J, Rapp BA, Wheeler DL. GenBank. Nucleic Acids
Res 2002;30:17–20. [PubMed: 11752243]99127
2. Wheeler DL, Church DM, Lash AE, Leipe DD, Madden TL, Pontius JU, Schuler GD, Schriml LM,
Tatusova TA, Wagner L, Rapp BA. Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology
Information: 2002 update. Nucleic Acids Res 2002;30:13–16. [PubMed: 11752242]99094
3. Wheeler DL, Church DM, Lash AE, Leipe DD, Madden TL, Pontius JU, Schuler GD, Schriml LM,
Tatusova TA, Wagner L, Rapp BA. Database resources of the National Center for Biotechnology
Information. Nucleic Acids Res 2001;29:11–16. [PubMed: 11125038]29800
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
The NCBI Handbook

Exercises: Using Map Viewer

[Chapter 24]

David Wheeler
Kim Pruitt
Donna Maglott
Susan Dombrowski
Andrei Gabrelian
The NCBI Handbook

Introduction
This chapter contains tutorials for using Map Viewer. Step-by-step instructions are provided for
several common biological research problems that can be addressed by exploiting the whole-genome
and positional perspectives of Map Viewer. Please be aware that the examples in these tutorials may
return different results when you execute them, because the underlying data may have been updated,
but we hope that the framework for obtaining, interpreting, and processing your results will be
sufficiently clear if that happens. Most of the examples are for human genes, but the same logic
applies to other genomes as well.
Please note that each of these tutorials is accompanied by a figure. If you are using this tutorial on
the Web, we suggest that you open another browser window so that you can view the figure as you
are reading the text. You are also encouraged to use Map Viewer interactively.
We welcome any suggestions that you have for improving the existing tutorials or for adding new
The NCBI Handbook

ones.

1. How Do I Obtain the Genomic Sequence around My Gene of Interest?

There are many instances in molecular biological research when you may have only a cDNA
sequence but need to have the nucleotide sequence that lies 5′ or 3′ to a gene or the introns for
additional analyses. Because genomic sequence available from the public database may not
have this annotation or may be so large as to make it difficult to retrieve only a region of interest,
tools have been added to Map Viewer to make it easier to define, view, and download genomic
sequence in multiple formats.

Direct Sequence Information via Map Viewer

From the Map Viewer homepage, select Search Homo sapiens (human) from the pull-down
menu, enter FMR1 in the box labeled for, and then select Go. On the results page, four entries
are returned (4 hits). FMR1 has been mapped on three different maps: Genes_cyto,
The NCBI Handbook

Genes_seq, and Morbid. Select the Genes_seq map to see the structure of the FMR1 gene.
Two links to the right of the Genes_seq map are of use in retrieving the 5′ and 3′ flanking DNA,
the sv and seq links (boxed). At the top of the page, Download/View Sequence/Evidence can
also be used.

The most informative maps, for the purpose of this example, are the Contig, Component, and
Genes_seq maps. Selecting the Genes_seq map will display the current gene model. To start
our search for flanking DNAs, display the Contig and Component maps. To do so, select
Maps & Options, and from the available maps, choose the Contig map by left-clicking with
the mouse. Select ADD>>. Now add the Component map. Next, make the Gene_seq map the
 Page 2
The NCBI Handbook

master map in the display by left-clicking on the Gene map under the Maps Displayed (left
to right) and selecting Make Master/Move to Bottom:. Finally, select the Contig map and
choose the Toggle Ruler to add a ruler ([R]) to the display. This will guide you in finding your
region of interest. Select Apply. From Figure 1, we can see that FMR1 has been annotated on
a finished contig, NT_011537.9 (c), and that the contig is built from two components in this
region, AC016925.15 and L29074.1 [(a) and (b), respectively].
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 3
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Making a master map

There are two links on the Map Viewer display that are used to view and download of the
region of interest: the seq link and the Download/View Sequence/Evidence link (boxed). The
seq link is displayed only when the Gene_seq map is made the master map in the display.
Selecting the seq link will open a window, prompting the user to enter a region to retrieve.
This region can then be refined further by adjusting the position, in kilobase pairs. Selecting
Display Region will change the start and stop positions on the contig, where the gene has been
annotated. The region can then be displayed and saved locally in FASTA or GenBank formats.

Selecting the Download/View Sequence/Evidence link from the main display page will
generate the same window, but the initial coordinates are those spanning the entire region
The NCBI Handbook

displayed by the Map Viewer rather than the region of a particular gene, as in the case above.

Let us assume that we would like to download 5.0 kb of upstream DNA and 1.0 kb of
downstream DNA. To define this region, we will need to follow the seq link, which will open
a new display showing the chromosome coordinates for FMR1 and the corresponding position
on the contig. To adjust the region, simply enter the amount of desired upstream DNA and
downstream DNA into the two adjust by: input boxes provided, and select Change Region.

User Support
 Page 4
The NCBI Handbook

Notice that the corresponding region on the contig has adjusted to reflect this change in position.
Now we can either display the data in GenBank or FASTA formats and save the data to a disk.

Using the Sequence Viewer

Another tool for obtaining the desired sequence is the Sequence Viewer, available via the sv
link when the Gene_seq map is the master map. The Sequence Viewer presents a graphical
view of the gene within the contig. The sequence is also annotated with the coding regions,
RNA and gene features, Sequence Tagged Sites (STSs), and single nucleotide polymorphisms.
Blue arrows at the top and bottom of the display allow the user to navigate upstream or
downstream. The Get Subsequence link (large, open arrow) at the top of the sv page allows
the user to change the sequence range on the contig and will also display the reverse
complement of the sequence. The specified region can then be displayed and saved locally in
FASTA format.
The NCBI Handbook

2. If I Have Physical and/or Genetic Mapping Data, How Do I Use the Map
Viewer to Find a Candidate Disease Gene in That Region?
In this example, we will use the Map Viewer to look for human candidate genes in a region.
The types of queries that can be posted to the Map Viewer that will address this type of question
are queries by genetic marker or STS.

Please note that Map Viewer supports queries by any named object positioned on a map so
that it is possible to query by gene symbol or GenBank Accession number or any other object
that might define your range of interest.

Querying by STSs
To refine our search, we will enter the names of two STSs. In the text box, enter “sWXD113
OR DXS52" on chromosome X. Select Find. We can see that these two STSs map to the distal
region of the long arm of the X chromosome, Xq, by the red tick marks that appear alongside
The NCBI Handbook

the schematic of the X chromosome. These two STS markers have been mapped on several
other maps that are also represented in the results. Select the X chromosome above the red 3
to see both markers in the same display. The Map Viewer page now displays three different
maps, each showing the physical location of these two markers.

The maps that are displayed include the UniG_Hs, Genes_seq, and STS maps. The UniG_Hs
map shows the density of ESTs and mRNAs that align to the current assembly of the human
genome. The Genes_seq map displays known and predicted genes that are annotated on the
genomic contigs. The rightmost map, the STS map in this case, is termed the master map and
contains descriptive information about each map element (Figure 2). The two STSs for which
we are searching (GDB:192503 and DXS52) are highlighted in pink. To the right of the display
is a grid indicating other maps upon which these STSs are located. The red dots (circled) to
the left of each highlighted STS show the relative position of these STSs in the context of the
two other maps. By default, a ruler is displayed alongside the STS map so that the region of
interest can be localized further. Notice on the far left of the page that there is an area where
you can enter the region that you would like to display [(a)].
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 5
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Master Map: STS

At the current resolution, it is not possible to view all of the information displayed on the three
maps. Therefore, some adjustment will be necessary.
The NCBI Handbook

Identifying a Candidate Gene

Narrow the region further using the ruler adjacent to the STS map as a guide. It is not necessary
to display a ruler alongside the other two maps because they are all on the same coordinate
system. In instances where sequence, genetic, cytogenetic, or radiation hybrid maps are being
displayed in the same view, it is advisable to display additional rulers because the different
maps show the mapped element on different coordinate systems (Kbp, cM, banding position,
or centiRays, respectively). Enter the range 133.0 M to147.0 M in the boxes to the left of the
page, in the Region Shown [(a)]. Select Go. This is a slightly better view; however, there are
many more genes in the region that can be displayed.

To see all of the genes in the region defined by the two markers, select the Data as Table
View link (boxed). The table that is generated lists all 144 genes in this region in a format easily
read by people or computers. The table also preserves the links to additional gene-related
resources seen in the graphical display, as well as reporting other objects in your displayed
The NCBI Handbook

region. Please note that links are also provided to make it easy for you to download reports,
not only of the objects in your map display, but other objects within the region defined by your
display. This feature is especially useful if you are looking for other gene markers in your
region of interest.

We can also change the page length under Maps & Options to a number large enough so that
all genes are displayed graphically on a single page. By default, Map Viewer will show 20 map
elements on a page. When the Genes_seq map is made the master map, there will be information

User Support
 Page 6
The NCBI Handbook

at the top of the page, indicating how many genes have been labeled (n = 20) and how many
genes are in the region (n = 144). To see all of the candidate genes in the specified region, go
to Maps & Options and change the page length to the number of genes in the region (n = 144)
and then select Apply.

Interpreting Your Results

At this point, you can now browse the description of the genes that are being displayed. Each
gene or locus name is hyperlinked to LocusLink, where a detailed report about the gene or
locus is provided. If the gene or locus of interest has supporting EST and mRNA data, then
you can select the UniGene cluster number and link to UniGene, where more detailed
information is provided about this gene, including its pattern of expression. LocusLink also
provides connections to BLink and thus indirectly to reports of related proteins in the protein
database and to viewers of protein structure, if your protein of interest is related to a protein
for which the structure is known (see also Exercise 8 in this chapter).
The NCBI Handbook

Other Ways to Query

The example above summarizes the approach taken when defining a region of interest by
entering names of markers in the query box. Gene symbols, reference SNP names, and
GenBank Accession numbers for ESTs could also be used. It should also be noted that when
a chromosome is displayed, you may also submit a query using the Region Shown boxes in
the bar at the left side.

3. How Can I Find and Display a Gene with the Map Viewer?
In this example, we will locate and display the human gene implicated in Fragile X syndrome
using the Map Viewer. We can find the gene beginning with several types of data. Refer to
Figure 3. For these examples, we assume you are starting from the human-specific Map Viewer.
If you instead are starting from the homepage, please remember to select “Homo sapiens
(human)” as the species.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 7
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Location and display of the human gene implicated in Fragile X syndrome

By Gene Symbol
If we are fortunate enough to know the official gene symbol for the Fragile X gene, FMR1, or
an alternative symbol such as FRAXA, we can type the symbol into the search box at the top
of the page and press the Find button. This gene has been annotated on the genome, and the
gene symbol FMR1 appears on the Genes_seq, Genes_cyto, and the Morbid maps. To
generate a Map Viewer display that includes all three maps, select the link to all matches.

By Linkage to a Disease
Genes that are linked to a disease in Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) are
referenced on the Morbid map and can be found by searching with a disease name or phenotype.
The NCBI Handbook

In our case, “fragile-X” can be used. Using this query, we pick up hits to genes related to
FMR1, as well as our intended gene. Selecting the FMR1 link generates a display of the gene.

By Physical Marker
The FMR1 gene contains the STS, STS-X69962 [(b)]; therefore, we can also use the name of
this STS to find it, as in the case of a gene symbol. The search yields a table of hits showing
that STS-X69962 appears on the STS map. Selecting the STS link gives us a Map Viewer

User Support
 Page 8
The NCBI Handbook

display of the STS we found but not of the gene we sought. To get the gene into the Map Viewer
display, we can add the Genes_seq map to the display. Although FMR1 is located on the
Genes_seq map rather than the STS map, because the coordinate systems used in different
maps are synchronized, we can see the FMR1 gene if we ask for the Genes_seq track in the
region corresponding to the hit on the STS map. To do this, we can select the Maps &
Options link [(a)], highlight the Gene map from the list of available maps in the left-hand
box, and select the ADD>> button to add this map to the list of displayed maps. After selecting
the Apply button, the Gene map is added to the Map Viewer display. Note, however, that the
view is limited to a very small 200-base pair portion of the gene. This is because we are still
focused on the STS returned by our initial search. To see an expanded view, we must zoom
out using the zoom control located directly over the thumbnail chromosome map in the blue
sidebar [(d)]. Mousing over the control indicates that we are viewing 1/10,000th of
chromosome X. We can click further up on the control to view 1/1,000th of the chromosome
and see most of the FMR1 gene. The FMR1 gene is now centered in the Map Viewer display,
and our STS hit is marked in red.
The NCBI Handbook

By Region
Often, a gene is known to reside only in a particular region. Suppose that we know only that
FMR1 resides somewhere between markers DXS532 and DXS7389 [(e) and (c), respectively].
We can use a query containing a Boolean OR to force the Map Viewer to search for both
markers simultaneously. In this case, a query to Map Viewer of “DXS532 OR DXS7389”
generates a number of hits to various physical maps, all to a region on chromosome X, which
is marked in red under the X chromosome graphic. If we select the chromosome X link under
the chromosome graphic, the Map Viewer display shows marker hits on several physical maps,
highlighted in red, over a fairly large sequence region from about 141 to 142 megabases. To
generate a tabular listing of all the genes in this region, select the Data as Table View link to
the left of the Map Viewer display. With a genetic map, such as the Genethon map, as the
master map, it is also possible to define or refine the region of display using coordinates in
centimorgans. In the case of FMR1, entering a range of 176–198 into the Region Shown boxes
generates a display of the genes falling within that range.
The NCBI Handbook

By Sequence Homology
Suppose that we have the sequence of the mouse homolog of the human FMR1 gene and want
to locate it on the human genome assembly. We might consult the Human/Mouse homology
map at NCBI as the most direct approach for mapped genes, but let us assume that the human
homolog of the FMR1 gene is unmapped. In this case, we can perform a BLAST sequence
similarity search with the mouse sequence to attempt to locate the corresponding human gene.
We will use the mouse Fmr1 mRNA sequence, taken from NCBI's LocusLink database
(Accession number NM_002024), as our probe and follow the link to BLAST search the
human genome located at the top of the Map Viewer search page; type the above Accession
number into the BLAST form, and press the Search button. Such searches are extremely fast
because they make use of an NCBI program called MegaBLAST, designed especially for this
purpose. In the MegaBLAST results, the Genomic View button near the top of the page
provides an entry point into a Map Viewer display. The MegaBLAST hits are indicated by a
red mark on chromosome X, and links to hits are provided in the table at the bottom of the
The NCBI Handbook

page, as in the searches by gene symbol or marker. In the case of any MegaBLAST search, all
hits are to sequences [(f)] on the Contig map; therefore, it is the contig link (Accession number
beginning with NT_) that we follow to view the hits in their genomic context. Following this
link brings us to a display of the FMR1 gene, with the BLAST hits indicated as highlighted
“hits” on the contig map and colored ticks on the other maps (large, expanded view).

User Support
 Page 9
The NCBI Handbook

Other Ways to Query

Please note that other resources within NCBI also support querying for genes. Consider also
LocusLink, UniGene, and Entrez Nucleotide. When a record of interest has been retrieved,
each of these provides links to Map Viewer.

4. How Can I Analyze a Gene Using the Map Viewer?

We will analyze the FMR1 gene. To find this gene in the human Map Viewer, enter FMR1
into the query box and select the Genes_seq map link in the table of search results.

To begin the analysis, we can select the link in the blue sidebar entitled Data as Table View
to see a tabular listing of the chromosomal coordinates of the features visible in the current
Map Viewer display. In the section of the table giving features on the Genes_seq map, we find
that the FMR1 gene extends from 141519781 to 141558823, a span of about 40,000 base pairs.
We can now return to the graphical Map Viewer display and limit our view to this region by
The NCBI Handbook

entering this range into the Region Shown boxes [Figure 4, (a)] in the blue sidebar and pressing
the Go button. The coordinate system operative in the Region Shown boxes is that of the
rightmost map in the Map Viewer display, called the master map; be sure that the Genes_seq
map is the master before changing the coordinates for the region shown.

We are now ready to select the maps to display. The maps displayed will depend on the sort
of analysis intended; however, one useful set of maps includes the Genes_seq, Contig, Comp,
GScan, UniG_Hs, RNA, and gbDNA maps. This set of maps can be selected for viewing using
the panel invoked by the Maps & Options link (large, open arrow). A Map Viewer display
of the FMR1 gene using this set of maps is given in Figure 4.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 10
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Set of maps

The Genes_seq Track

The NCBI Handbook

In Figure 4, the Genes_seq map, which displays annotated genes, is the master map and is the
first one we will examine. The FMR1 gene comprises 18 exons, represented by thick lines,
interspersed over about 40,000 base pairs of sequence. The gene is drawn to the right of the
Genes_seq track line and therefore runs from the top of the display to the bottom and is coded
on the “plus” strand in the human genome assembly. Genes located on the opposite strand run
from the bottom of the display upward and are shown to the left of the Genes_seq track. The
FMR1 gene is displayed in orange, which indicates that the alignment between the genomic
sequence and the FMR1 transcript sequences that were used to produce the gene model was
not perfect; blue alignments are of the best quality. The 3′-most exon (bottom inset) of the gene
is exceptionally large and probably includes a significant untranslated region. To verify this,
we can select the sv link (boxed) to the right of the Genes_seq map to invoke the Sequence
Viewer, which shows the sequence of the FMR1 gene. In the Sequence Viewer, we can navigate
to the display for the last exon, number 18, to see that the coding sequence ends toward the
beginning of the exon and that the majority of the exon is indeed untranslated.
The NCBI Handbook

The RNA Track

The RNA or Transcript map shows the alignment of a single mRNA sequence to the genome,
and in this case, the pattern of exons produced matches exactly that shown on the Genes_seq
map. If additional splice variants are sequenced, multiple alignments will be shown on the
RNA track, and the gene model given on the Genes_seq track will be a composite model made
up of all the exons implied by these alignments.

User Support
 Page 11
The NCBI Handbook

The GScan Track

The GenomeScan track shows gene predictions made using GenomeScan that are independent
of supporting mRNA alignments. The GenomeScan model for FMR1 is very similar to the
model shown on the Genes_seq track; however, there are differences, and the alignment-based
model shown on the Genes_seq track covers exons that are part of two different GenomeScan
models (topmost inset). Note also that the GenomeScan model covers only the initial translated
portion of the large 3′ exon of the transcript-based model (bottom inset).

The UniG_Hs Track

Both the predicted model (GScan) and the alignment-based model (Genes_seq) can be
compared to the mapping of ESTs on the UniG_Hs track. The bars extending to the left of the
UniG_Hs track line depict EST mapping density, whereas the lines to the right connect ESTs
arising from common UniGene clusters. From the UniG_Hs track, it is clear that most of the
exons arising from either of the two gene models have some EST support, and that most of the
The NCBI Handbook

ESTs that map to these regions are members of UniGene cluster Hs.89764 (boxed, center).
Selecting the Hs.89764 link leads to the FMR1 UniGene cluster.

The UniG_Mm Track

This map is comparable to the UniG_Hs track but is based instead on alignment of mouse
cDNA sequences (conventional and EST). In this example, the exons suggested by the
alignment of mouse cDNAs is comparable to that based on alignment of human cDNAs.

SAGE_tag
SAGE_tag provides another view of expression levels and connections to more information
about the tissue of origin of the expressed sequences. The SAGE_tag map also provides a
histogram of expression, and each tag is connected to a tag-specific report page.

The Contig Track

The NCBI Handbook

Looking across to the Contig track, we can see that the gene maps to a contig that is drawn in
blue, indicating that the contig is derived from high quality, finished sequence. If we consult
the Component map (Comp), we can see that the portion of the contig containing the FMR1
gene is composed of two overlapping finished sequences, also drawn in blue. Because the
sequence underlying the FMR1 gene is finished, rather than draft sequence, the FMR1 sequence
and structure are likely to remain stable in future human genome assemblies.

The gbDNA Track

Additional GenBank sequences that align to the genome but were not part of the assembly are
shown on the gbDNA track. In this case, a number of short sequences for the individual exons
of FMR1, the product of intense research on this gene, are aligned to the genome (Figure 4b).

5. How Can I Create My Own Transcript Models with the Map Viewer?
The Map Viewer displays the alignment of transcripts, such as mRNA GenBank sequences
The NCBI Handbook

and RefSeqs, to genomic sequence and shows the positions of predicted genes, but it does not
stop there. By using a utility called the ModelMaker, it is possible to combine the alignment
evidence with the results of gene prediction to construct novel transcripts.

Beginning with the standard Map Viewer display for the gene FMR1, we can display the Gscan
and Genes_seq maps in parallel, as shown in Figure 5. The GScan map shows gene predictions
made by the GenomeScan program. The Genes_seq track shows the exons implied by the
composite alignment of transcripts, such as NCBI mRNA RefSeqs, to the genome. There are

User Support
 Page 12
The NCBI Handbook

two boxed regions in the Map Viewer display. The upper boxed region shows that the
GenomeScan model for FMR1 begins at a point that is part of an intron in the transcript-based
model. Furthermore, there is a separate GenomScan model upstream of the first that overlaps
with the initial exon of the transcript-based model. It would be of interest to investigate whether
the two GenomeScan models could be fused to produce a longer transcript. In the lower
boxed region, we see that the transcript-based model includes an exon lacking in the
GenomeScan model. Perhaps we can create a model transcript based on the fusion of the two
GenomeScan models that also includes the extra exon seen in the transcript-based model.
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 13
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Use of ModelMaker to test alternative cDNA XSmodels based on GenomeScan predictions of

mRNA alignments

To attempt this synthesis, we first select the mm link [(a)] to the right of the FMR1 gene link
on the Genes_seq track to invoke the ModelMaker. A number of alignments between transcript
or model sequences and the genomic contig upon which FMR1 lies, NT_011537 [(b)], are
given at the top of the ModelMaker display, and the implied exons resulting from these
alignments are shown just below, numbered sequentially in the Putative exons pallet. We may
choose any of these exons for inclusion in our model by selecting it. We can also choose a
The NCBI Handbook

complete set of exons from an existing alignment by selecting the set link next to an alignment.
Because we plan to begin with the GenomeScan model, we can select the set link next to the
second alignment from the bottom to start. This gives us an initial model identical to that of
the GenomeScan prediction and yields, as its longest Open Reading Frame (ORF), an ORF of
600 amino acids. We can also see the second, small, GenomeScan-predicted model at the far
left of the ModelMaker display. We hope to fuse this model with the larger model. The second
model comprises three closely spaced exons, resembling a single exon in the display, numbered

User Support
 Page 14
The NCBI Handbook

2–4 in the Putative exons pallet. Selecting exons 2 and 3 adds them to the model (first boxed
pair in the ModelMaker display). At this point, the longest ORF detected in the transcript has
increased to 762 amino acids. If we try to include exon 4, however, we drop back to 600 amino
acids because of the introduction of an internal stop codon; therefore, we can remove exon 4
from our model with another click. Finally, we can select exon 22, which is the exon from the
alignment-based model that we want to include, and notice that the longest ORF detected has
risen to 823 amino acids [(c)]. Because long ORFs without stop codons occur rarely by chance,
this transcript model is promising. To explore further, we can select the ORF Finder link to
generate a graphical view of all ORFs found in the transcript, including the longest ORF, and
subject the translation of the latter to a BLAST search. In this case, we find that the majority
of the predicted protein matches the FMR1 gene product but that we have introduced some
novel peptide sequence at the amino-terminal end as well as some near the carboxy terminus.

In this example, there were multiple, putative, full-length mRNAs. Please note that ESTs can
be added to the display by selecting add ESTs (Figure 5, upper right-hand corner). Additional
The NCBI Handbook

exons and splicing patterns may then be available to be considered in your model. This feature
may be of particular importance if most of the evidence for splicing and exons comes from
ESTs rather than complete mRNAs.

6. Using the Mouse Map Viewer

This assembly can be displayed by using Map Viewer for the mouse. In this particular case,
the official symbol for the human and mouse genes is the same; therefore, a query by symbol
returns the expected result. If this were not the case, however, it is also possible to search the
mouse genome by the human sequence using BLAST the Mouse Genome. Simulating this,
you can see that the best match for the human sequence is for a gene labeled LOC207836. If
you check this in LocusLink, you will see that this is now annotated as Fmr1.

By Human/Mouse Homology Map

Consider an example in which we want to know whether there is a human/mouse synteny
The NCBI Handbook

region that includes our favorite gene, FMR1. To begin, enter FMR1 into the Map Viewer
search box and press the Find button. Selecting the gene name in the results table leads us to
a Map Viewer display of the FMR1 gene with the Genes_seq map, UniG_Hs map, and
Genes_cyto maps shown. In Figure 6, the Genes_cyto map has been replaced with the
UniG_Mm map. Selecting the hm link (boxed) to the right of the Genes_seq map leads to the
human/mouse homology maps. One can choose between two slightly different variants of
human genome assembly (NCBI and UCSC). Three sources of mouse mapping data are
available: the Mouse Genome Database (MGD) map, Jackson Lab map, and the Whitehead/
MRC Radiation Hybrid map. Either of the two human maps may be compared with either of
the two mouse maps.
The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 15
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

The human/mouse synteny region

Let us choose the NCBI versus MGD variant and then check for synteny in the region of the
FMR1 homologs in the two species. Because our primary interest is the human gene FMR1,
we select NCBI versus MGD_Hs, and the comparative map will appear. The row corresponding
to the FMR1 gene is highlighted (inset). The mouse homolog, called Fmr1, is also positioned
on chromosome X, and the order of genes surrounding it is conserved in both genomes.
Available STS data are indicated by a green dot that is a hyperlink to UniSTS. Links to the
Map Viewer (select Cytogenetic map position) and LocusLink (select Gene Symbol) are
available for each pair of genes. The user can examine the pairwise BLAST alignment that is
accessible by selecting a chromosome color-coded dot preceding the mouse gene name. A dot-
matrix similarity plot on the pairwise alignment page makes it easy to visually estimate the
differences in sequences of the two genes. It is interesting to see that the similarity between
The NCBI Handbook

FMR1 and Fmr1 actually extends past the coding regions.

Using the Mouse UniGene Map

Figure 6 shows a Map Viewer display of human FMR1 using the Genes_seq map, the
UniG_Mm map, and the UniG_Hs map. It is apparent that the EST mapping patterns on the
two UniGene maps are similar for FMR1. This indicates a similarity at the expressed sequence
level but does not indicate a similar gene structure because both sets of ESTs are being mapped

User Support
 Page 16
The NCBI Handbook

to the same human genomic sequence. To investigate similarities in gene structure, it is

necessary to use the mouse version of the Map Viewer.

Using the Mouse Map Viewer

The most complete assembly of the mouse genome available at NCBI is the Mouse Genome
Consortium Version 3 WGS assembly. This assembly can be displayed using the mouse version
of the Map Viewer; however, the mouse homolog of FMR1 is not labeled as such in this
assembly; therefore, we cannot find it using a simple search by gene name. We can overcome
this obstacle by searching the mouse genome with the human mRNA sequence using mouse
genome BLAST. The result of such a search is shown in the leftmost inset in Figure 6 and
indicates that a gene model labeled LOC207836 is the probable homolog. The double-arrow
links the human and mouse Map Viewer displays of the corresponding genes in the two species;
the structures are not identical, but they do share a rather large 3′ exon. If we zoom out a bit in
the two displays (two right insets) to see the surrounding genes, we can observe that the
The NCBI Handbook

organization of the two genomes is similar in the region of FMR1 to the extent that a second
gene called FMR2 lies downstream of FMR1, whereas the mouse version, Fmr2, likewise lies
downstream of the mouse Fmr1 homolog.

7. How Can I Find Members of a Gene Family Using the Map Viewer?
Finding members of a gene family is not straightforward by any means. However, the Map
Viewer can be used to flag sets of genes that are related, either by nomenclature or by sequence
similarity.

By Common Annotation
Consider the gene FMR1. Let us assume we do not know much about genes from this family,
but we suppose (recognizing that we may have cause to regret this supposition) that they all
share the common root name FMR. We start our search from the main Map Viewer page by
entering FMR* (the asterisk is a wild-card symbol) into the Search box and pressing the
Find button. This search results in several hits, and some obviously do not belong to the
The NCBI Handbook

FMR1 family (cytoplasmic FMR1 interacting proteins 1 and 2, FMRFAL); but two genes on
chromosome X (FMR2 and FMR3) and one on chromosome 17 (FMR1L2) look promising.
By selecting the chromosome X all matches link, we go to the graphical representation of the
genomic region containing three FMR genes.

Selecting the gene name (the rows for the FMR* query hits are highlighted) invokes a
corresponding LocusLink page that serves as a portal to available information for the gene,
including the precomputed results of a similarity search against the nr database. Go to the NCBI
Reference Sequences section of the LocusLink page and select the BLAST Link (BL) link.
BLink displays a schematic representation of BLAST alignments with links to displays of the
best hit from each organism, protein domains found in the query sequence, or sequences similar
to the query that have known 3D structures.

When we look at the BLAST summary for FMR1, we find neither FMR2 nor FMR3. We did
not expect FMR3 to show up because it had not been mapped on the Genes_seq map, which
The NCBI Handbook

suggested that its sequence is not yet known. However, why do we not see FMR2? If we use
LocusLink to retrieve the Reference Sequences for the FMR1 and FMR2 gene products
(NP_002015 and NP_002016) and perform a pairwise BLAST comparison, we find that there
is no significant similarity between the two sequences. Apparently, the names of “FMR” genes
do not reflect common sequence features but rather a physiological condition, “fragile X mental
retardation” syndrome, associated with this gene. In this sense, the two are members of a group

User Support
 Page 17
The NCBI Handbook

or family, but they show sequence similarity only in the pathological trinucleotide repeats
(CGG)n that are often found upstream of their coding regions.

By Precomputed Sequence Similarity

The BLink page lists two annotated human homologs of the FMR1 gene, called “fragile X
mental retardation”, autosomal homologs 1 and 2 (FXR1 and FXR2). They show a significant
similarity to the FMR1 protein and possess the same functional domains (K-homology RNA-
binding domains documented in the LocusLink reports). Selecting the Score column link
invokes a page with the results of pairwise BLAST, as well as a visual representation of
similarity between the two proteins (a variant of the dot matrix similarity plot).

By Sequence Similarity to a Query

To see whether there are undocumented homologs of FMR1 in the genome, return to the Map
Viewer maps page for the FMR1 gene and select the BLAST the Human Genome link. Enter
The NCBI Handbook

the Accession number for the FMR1 protein taken from the LocusLink report (NP_002015)
into the Search window, select Genome as the database, tblastn as the BLAST program, and
search. A tblastn search takes a protein sequence as a query and translates a nucleotide database
in all reading frames to find any coding regions, documented or undocumented, that might
code for a protein similar to the query. Such a search is very sensitive because it is tolerant of
differences in codon usage as well as of insertions and deletions.

The results of such a search are shown in Figure 7. BLAST hits to regions on four chromosomes
are shown in the genomic overview, indicated by small tick marks. There are 14 hits to
chromosome X, clustered near the end of the q-arm. These hits are to FMR1, which is located
in band Xq27.3. There are also 5 hits apiece to chromosomes 3 and 17 [(a) and (b),
respectively]. These hits are to known homologs of FMR1, FXR1, and FXR2. Selecting the
links below the chromosome graphic or on the appropriate contig link in the table below leads
to a graphical display of the hits on the contig, as shown in the two insets. Note that the BLAST
hits track the exons of the genes. The hit on chromosome 12 is to a hypothetical protein and
The NCBI Handbook

may be worth further investigation.

The NCBI Handbook

User Support
 Page 18
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook
The NCBI Handbook

Review of results of a tblastn query against the mouse genome using a human protein sequence
The summary of significant BLAST hits is shown in the top graphic. Sections (a) and (b) show
expanded views of hits to the related genes FXR1 and FXR2 on chromosomes 3 and 17,
respectively.

8. How Can I Find Genes Encoding a Protein Domain Using the Map Viewer?
The Map Viewer displays a graphic representation of genomic information with links to related
resources that allow it to serve as a springboard for many types of analyses.
The NCBI Handbook

Finding Protein Domains in a Gene Product

For example, one might be interested in the domain structure of the gene product. Let us use
the human FMR1 gene as an example. On the main Map Viewer page, enter FMR1 into the
Search for window and press the Find button. Select the FMR1 link to display three maps
(cyto, UniG_Hs, and Genes_seq) of the FMR1 locus on chromosome X. Selecting the gene

User Support
 Page 19
The NCBI Handbook

name next to the gene model (FMR1) leads to the LocusLink page, which is not only a
compilation of genomic, genetic, and reference data related to the gene but also a gateway to
the external resources and NCBI tools and databases. The LocusLink report for FMR1 is linked
to precomputed BLAST results for the FMR1 gene product. Selecting BL (BLink, for BLAST
link) invokes a page with a schematic view of the BLAST comparison of the FMR1 protein
against the non-redundant (nr) database. The BLink page lists database hits to the FMR1
protein, sorted according to their BLAST similarity scores. Results may be reformatted by
selecting Sort by Taxonomy Proximity to cluster hits from the same species.

To see the functional domains that have been identified in the FMR1 protein, select the
Conserved Domains Database (CDD) Search button. The resulting page shows two hits to the
KH-domain from the SMART database and one hit to the KH domain in the Pfam database.
Notice that one of the SMART domain hits is a partial hit, as indicated by the jagged edge in
the schematic representation.
The NCBI Handbook

Visualizing 3D structures
We can easily see whether there exists a three-dimensional structure that includes these
conserved domains. The pink dot preceding the domain name in the BLink Description of
Alignments section leads to a display of the corresponding three-dimensional structure using
Cn3D, the NCBI macromolecular viewer available over the Web. The Pfam and SMART
domains are linked to two 3D structures (1K1G_A and 1J4W_A). The CDD page also lists
other sequences that have the same domain and shows their multiple sequence alignments.

Searching for Similar Domains in Genomic Sequence

Cut and paste the sequence of the KH-domain from the FMR1 protein and run a genome-
specific BLAST search. We will use the tblastn program to compare the 44-amino acid
sequence of the KH domain to the nucleotide sequence of the human genome. The results will
show us other regions of the genome with the potential to code for this domain. Of course, we
already know from the BLink page that there are some autosomal homologs, but we do not
The NCBI Handbook

know whether they actually contain the KH RNA-binding domain. The obvious caveat is that
some pseudogenes might contain the domain as well. Our tblastn search returns 4 hits, one
being the FMR1 gene itself on the X chromosome, and three others on chromosomes 3, 12,
and 17. Select the Genome View button in the Genome BLAST results to see the positions of
the hits on the chromosomes. One may then select the names of sequences producing significant
alignments to invoke a Map Viewer display that shows the corresponding maps and report the
names of the loci. As expected, hits to chromosomes 3 and 17 correspond to the autosomal
homologs FXR1 and FXR2. The hit to chromosome 12 corresponds to the hypothetical protein
HSPC232, and the Map Viewer display for this BLAST hit is shown (Figure 8). The hit is to
a segment of intronic sequence, rather than to an exon, and is without supporting human EST
alignments. There are, however, mouse ESTs mapping to this region (lower inset), and there
is also a GenomeScan model that covers the hit; therefore, the BLAST hit may indeed represent
coding sequence. Selecting the Blast hit link (boxed) leads to an alignment (upper inset) that
indicates a good match between our 44-amino acid domain sequence and a protein translation
of the genomic sequence. If we map this 44-amino acid sequence onto the structure of 1K1G
using Cn3D, we see that it covers a module consisting of two alpha helices and a three-stranded
The NCBI Handbook

beta sheet (leftmost inset). It appears reasonable that our domain hit may represent an exon of
the HSPC232 gene. To follow this line of analysis, the next step might be to produce a transcript
model incorporating this new exon using the Model Maker (see the Model Maker exercise in
this series).

User Support
Page 20

User Support
BLAST hits
The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook The NCBI Handbook