The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA)

The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA; http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena) provides a comprehensive record of the world's nucleotide sequencing information, covering raw sequencing data, sequence assembly information and functional annotation. Major components of ENA include the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) for next generation data and EMBL-Bank for assembled and annotated sequences. ENA works closely together with NCBI and DDBJ as partners in the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). Data arrive at ENA from a variety of sources. These include submissions of raw data, assembled sequences and annotation from small-scale sequencing efforts, data provision from the major European sequencing centres and routine and comprehensive exchange with our INSDC partners. Provision of nucleotide sequence data to ENA or its INSDC partners has become a central and mandatory step in the dissemination of research findings to the scientific community. ENA works with publishers of scientific literature and funding bodies to ensure compliance with these principles and provides a portfolio of interactive and programmatic submission services to ensure the smoothest flow possible of data into the public domain. ENA data can be searched using rapid sequence similarity and text search services provided both within web-based tools and under programmatic interfaces. Data can be retrieved in a variety of appropriate widely adopted formats through a web browser and extensive REST services. This presentation will consist of an introduction to ENA, followed by a short demonstration of the various ways data can be browsed and retrieved.