The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database

The EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl.html) cons titutes Europe's primary nucleotide sequence resource. Main sources for DNA and RNA sequences are direct submissions from individual researchers, geno me sequencing projects and patent applications. While automatic procedures allow incorporation of sequence data from large-scale genome sequencing cen tres and from the European Patent Office (EPO), the preferred submission to ol for individual submitters is Webin (WWW). Through all stages, dataflow i s monitored by EBI biologists communicating with the sequencing groups. In collaboration with DDBJ and GenBank the database is produced, maintained an d distributed at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). Database rele ases are produced quarterly and are distributed on CD-ROM, Network services allow access to the most up-to-date data collection via Internet and World Wide Web interface. EBl's Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) is a Network Bro wser for Databanks in Molecular Biology, integrating and linking the main n ucleotide and protein databases, plus many specialised databases. For seque nce similarity searching a variety of toots (e.g, Blitz, Pasta, Blast etc) are available for external users to compare their own sequences against the most currently available data in the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database and SWISS-PROT.