• Entries from ENA and GenBank during a specific period are not being reflected in getentry

33rd INSDC meeting report: June 1-5 2020, teleconference

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  • 33rd INSDC meeting report: June 1-5 2020, teleconference

2020

33rd INSDC meeting report: June 1-5 2020, teleconference

International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), consisted of DDBJ Center, EBI and NCBI, hold the international meeting every year.
In 2020, the meeting was to be held at DDBJ. However, because of the influence of COVID-19, the meeting was held 1-5 June on a teleconference, to discuss practical matters to maintain and update nucleotide sequence data archives; DDBJ, ENA, GenBank, Sequence Read Archive (SRA), BioProject and BioSample.
The outcomes of the meeting are summarized below.

The Items Discussed and To Be Studied

SARS-CoV-2 Sequence Data Sharing
We consider that sharing sequence data related to SARS-CoV-2 is one of the most important task for INSDC. On the other hand, related to the matter of the Conference of the Parties Convention on Biological Diversity 14 and the Nagoya Protocol discussed in 2018, the World Health Organization suggests researchers share sequence data of SARS-CoV-2 through GISAID.
INSDC have joined together to issue a statement encouraging the scientific community to submit their SARS-CoV-2 sequences to INSDC databases.
  • DDBJ: INSDC Statement on SARS-CoV-2 sequence data sharing during COVID-19
  • EBI: SARS-CoV-2 open access data sharing through INSDC databases
  • NCBI: INSDC Statement on SARS-CoV-2 sequence data sharing during COVID-19

Discussion Items Related to SRA Data

New File Formats for SRA Data and Use of Cloud Resources at NCBI
As discussed in 2019, NCBI is shifting SRA data into public cloud resources. Related to this issue, SRA ETL-BQS, new file format for SRA data without base quality score, is proposed.
  • NIH accepts public comments regarding a new way of SRA data provision by 17th July
  • Use of Cloud Resources and New File Formats for Sequence Read Archive Data

Forthcoming Changes in The DDBJ/ENA/GenBank Feature Table Definition

  • A new qualifier, /circular_RNA will be available for CDS, and mRNA and tRNA features.
  • The term, “circRNA”, will be added to controlled vocabularies for /ncRNA_class qualifier.
  • Definitions of /organism and /country qualifiers will be slightly changed. There is no change in the usage of these qualifiers.

The modifications will be applied after October 2020 with the next revision of Feature Table Definition.