European Nucleotide Archive
The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) is a repository providing free and unrestricted access to annotated DNA and RNA sequences. It also stores complementary information such as experimental procedures, details of sequence assembly and other metadata related to sequencing projects. The archive is composed of three main databases: the Sequence Read Archive, the Trace Archive and the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (also known as EMBL-bank). The ENA is produced and maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute and is a member of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) along with the DNA Data Bank of Japan and GenBank.
| Content | |
|---|---|
| Description | Comprehensive archive of nucleotide sequences, annotations and associated data. |
| Data types captured | Nucleotide sequence, functional annotation, sequencing reads and sequencer information, sample details, other related records. |
| Organisms | All |
| Contact | |
| Research center | European Bioinformatics Institute |
| Laboratory | PANDA Group |
| Primary citation | PMID 20972220 |
| Release date | April 1982 |
| Access | |
| Data format | XML FASTQ EMBL-Bank format |
| Website | ENA |
| Download URL | ENA download |
| Web service URL | ENA browser |
| Tools | |
| Standalone | CRAM toolkit |
| Miscellaneous | |
| License | Unrestricted |
The ENA has grown out of the EMBL Data Library which was released in 1982 as the first internationally supported resource for nucleotide sequence data. As of early 2012, the ENA and other INSDC member databases each contained complete genomes of 5,682 organisms and sequence data for almost 700,000. Moreover, the volume of data is increasing exponentially with a doubling time of approximately 10 months.