Improving the gold standard in NCBI GenBank and related databases: DNA sequences from type specimens and type strains.

ABSTRACT: Scientific names permit humans and search engines to access knowledge about the biodiversity that surrounds us, and names linked to DNA sequences are playing an ever-greater role in search-and-match identification procedures. Here, we analyze how users and curators of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) are flagging and curating sequences derived from nomenclatural type material, which is the only way to improve the quality of DNA-based identification in the long run. For prokaryotes, 18,281 genome assemblies from type strains have been curated by NCBI staff and improve the quality of prokaryote naming. For Fungi, type-derived sequences representing over 21,000 species are now essential for fungus naming and identification. For the remaining eukaryotes, however, the nu

SUBMITTER: Renner SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11502950 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature