Managing sequence data

Abstract

Nucleotide and protein sequences are the foundation for all bioinformatics tools and resources. Researchers can analyze these sequences to discover genes or predict the function of their products. The INSDC (International Nucleotide Sequence Database—DDBJ/ENA/GenBank + SRA) is an international, centralized primary sequence resource that is freely available on the Internet. This database contains all publicly available nucleotide and derived protein sequences. This chapter discusses the structure and history of the nucleotide sequence database resources built at NCBI, provides information on how to submit sequences to the databases, and explains how to access the sequence data.