Browsing Genes and Genomes with Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes

This talk will include an introduction to Ensembl browsers, key views in browsing genomes, and tools for accessing genomic data and analysing your own, including BioMart and the VEP.

Interpreting the large-scale sequence variation and gene regulation data sets typical of modern genomics research requires an integrated interface to access genomic information. Ensembl (www.ensembl.org) provides this interface and an infrastructure for genomic information covering over 70 vertebrate species, including cow, pig, sheep, and chicken. Its sister project, Ensembl Genomes (http://www.ensemblgenomes.org), consists of five sub-portals (bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, and invertebrate metazoa) which contain data for over 100 eukaryotic and over 15,000 prokaryotic species.

All species in Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes have gene annotation (based on biological evidence) and comparative genomics analyses within the taxa (excluding bacteria). For many of these genomes, we also provide annotation of sequence variants, such as SNPs and CNVs. Access to these data are via our browser websites, BioMart (for protists, fungi, plants, and animals), FTP, Perl APIs, REST API, and MySQL queries. The Variant Effect Predictor (VEP) is a powerful tool that allows analysis of your own sequence variants and is available for all species in Ensembl and Ensembl Genomes. Highlights of the past year include five new rice genomes, updates to our VEP and BLAST tools and new animal species (Vervet monkey, Amazon molly and Olive baboon).