Tag: Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST)
Do you use NCBI’s standalone BLAST tool (BLAST+)? The latest version of BLAST+ is now available and includes two exciting new features! You can now run searches faster and focus your searches by organism more easily. Continue reading “Faster and Focused Searches with BLAST+ 2.15.0”
The scientific community relies heavily on model organism research to gain knowledge and make discoveries. However, focusing solely on these species misses valuable variation. Comparative genomics allows us to use knowledge from a model species, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to understand traits in other, related organisms, such as Saccharomyces pastorianus or Saccharomyces eubayanus. Applying this information may provide valuable insight for other less-researched organisms. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR) offers a cutting-edge NCBI toolkit of high-quality genomics data and tools to help you do just that. Continue reading “Comparing Yeast Species Used in Beer Brewing and Bread Making”
Now available! You can download the ClusteredNR protein database, previously only available on the BLAST web application. As recently introduced, our ClusteredNR database allows you to get quicker BLAST results and access to information about the distribution of your hits across a wider range of organisms and evolutionary distances. The package includes the ClusteredNR BLAST database, an SQLite3 database, and several scripts for accessing cluster information and members.
Continue reading “BLAST ClusteredNR Database is Now Available for Download!”
An updated bacterial and archaeal reference genome collection is available! This collection of 18,343 genomes was built by selecting exactly one genome assembly for each species among the 312,000+ prokaryotic genomes in RefSeq, except for E. coli for which two assemblies were selected as reference.
The criteria for selecting the reference assembly for a given species include assembly contiguity and completeness and quality of the RefSeq annotation.
Continue reading “Now Available! Updated Bacterial and Archaeal Reference Genomes Collection”
Are you conducting research on animal-mediated transmission of human viral infections, such as COVID-19? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR) offers a cutting-edge NCBI toolkit of high-quality genomics data and tools to help with comparative genomics analysis for eukaryotic genes, such as Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) which is targeted by SARS-CoV-2.
NCBI resources have been beneficial in helping the scientific community understand viral infections associated with public health crises, such as COVID-19 and Influenza, and can be used for study of emerging viruses that may represent new threats. Continue reading “Which animals can catch and transmit human viral infections?”
Effective July 10, 2023, NCBI’s Assembly and Genome record pages now redirect to new NCBI Datasets pages. As previously announced, these updates are part of our ongoing effort to modernize and improve your user experience. NCBI Datasets is a new resource that makes it easier to find and download genome data.
During this transition, you will have the option to return to the legacy Genome and Assembly record pages. We will remove the legacy pages in early 2024. Continue reading “New & Improved NCBI Datasets Genome and Assembly Pages “
Unlock the full potential of eukaryotic research organisms and their genomic data with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR). CGR facilitates reliable comparative genomics analyses through community collaboration as well as an NCBI toolkit of interconnected, interoperable data and tools.
Comparative genomics is a field of study that uses the genomes of many different organisms to help us understand basic biological processes and human disease. NCBI is developing CGR to help researchers take full advantage of the rapidly growing number of eukaryotic organisms that, due to recent technological advances, now have sequenced genomes and associated data that can be used in these types of studies. Its NCBI toolkit offers new and modern resources for such analyses, and its emphasis on community collaboration brings new opportunities to share and connect data. Continue reading “Revolutionize your research with the NIH Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR)”
Have you ever come across an unfamiliar protein in your BLAST results? With the newly added ‘AlphaFold Structure’ link (Figure 1), you can now explore its structure as predicted by AlphaFold in iCn3D. The iCn3D Structure Viewer is not only a web-based 3D viewer, but also a structure analysis tool with interactive displays of 3D structure, 2D topology, 1D sequence and annotation.
NEW in BLAST! We made smaller nucleotide databases to help you find the sequences you need faster and easier. You can now find these databases on the main nucleotide BLAST search page (Figure 1) and even download them (Databases: nt_euk, nt_prok, nt_viruses, nt_others). They are separated by organism type, such as eukaryotes, prokaryotes, viruses, and others (including synthetic sequences). 
Figure 1. The database selection section of the main nucleotide BLAST page with the ‘Experimental databases’ radio button selected. You can choose one or more of the organism database subsets for your search. Continue reading “Now Available! Faster BLAST Searches with New Nucleotide Databases”
As previously announced, we are continuously curating a better Prokaryotic Reference Genomes Collection. An updated bacterial and archaeal reference genome collection is now available! This collection of 17,623 genomes was built by selecting exactly one genome assembly for each species among the 283,000+ prokaryotic genomes in RefSeq, except for E. coli for which two assemblies were selected as reference.