The current release has:
- 251,094,334 traditional records containing 3,387,240,663,231 base pairs of sequence data
- 3,380,877,515 WGS records containing 27,900,199,328.,333 base pairs of sequence data
- 746,753,803 bulk-oriented TSA records containing 695,405,769,319 base pairs of sequence data
- 135,446,337 bulk-oriented TLS records containing 54,512,778,803 base pairs of sequence data
What’s new?
During the 57 days between the close dates for GenBank releases 260.0 and 261.0, the traditional portion of GenBank grew by 173,422,659,444 base pairs and by 291,328 sequence records. We updated 1,208,191 records during that same period. We added and/or updated an average of 26,307 traditional records per day!
Between releases 260.0 and 261.0, the WGS component of GenBank grew by 675,082,740,396 base pairs and by 47,255,692 sequence records. The TSA component of GenBank grew by 5,757,452,237 base pairs and by 5,687,305 sequence records. The TLS component of GenBank grew by 1,020,535,547 base pairs and by 330,571 sequence records.
Changes with this release
Sequencing efforts have yielded a growing number of single, traditional (non-WGS) chromosomal sequence records that exceed our 500-megabyte target size for uncompressed sequence files. We increased our target size for these files to 1.5 gigabytes, resulting in approximately half the total number of sequence files from 10,388 (Release 260.0) to 5,024 (Release 261.0).
Given this reduction, the usual per-division description of sequence file increases is not possible. We will resume providing that information as of GenBank Release 262.0.
As planned and previously announced, the “geo_loc_name” qualifier change for June 2024 is in effect with this release.
Upcoming changes
GenBank will have new allowed values for the “/collection_date” qualifier effective December 2024.
Additional information
For downloading purposes, please keep in mind that the uncompressed GenBank release 261.0 sequence data flat files require roughly 5,249 GB. The ASN.1 data files require approximately 2,300 GB.
For more information about GenBank release 261.0, see the release notes, as well as the README files in the GenBank and ASN.1 (ncbi-asn1) directories on FTP.
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Questions?
Please send any comments or questions to info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.