Curated Content in RefSeq Genome Annotations

The RefSeq project aims to provide a comprehensive, high-quality, non-redundant set of annotations, including transcripts, proteins and genomic DNA. A subset of RefSeqs are manually curated by biological content experts at the gene and transcript/protein level to provide descriptors for transcripts, proteins and genes and generate known RefSeqs (NM_, NP_, NR_ accessions). At present, curation efforts are focused on human and mouse annotations, while rat, chicken, cow and zebrafish annotations also benefit from frequent manual curation. Curated content is based on user-provided data archived in NCBI's databases, data from external databases and data in peer-reviewed publications. Curators in the RefSeq group are also involved in targeted annotation of specific genes and gene-families in collaboration with subject experts. Curation leads to correction of errors flagged by QA tests, incorporation of suggestions from users and better inputs for future annotation updates and new annotation of new genomes.