Depositing annotated sequences in GenBank: there needs to be a better way

Abstract

Submitting sequences to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is an integral part of research and the publication process for many disciplines within the life sciences, and it will only become more important as sequencing technologies continue to improve. Here, I argue that the available infrastructure and resources for uploading data to NCBI-especially the associated annotations of eukaryotic genomes-are inefficient, hard to use and sometimes just plain bad. This, in turn, is causing some researchers to forgo annotations entirely in their submissions. The time is overdue for the development of sophisticated, user-friendly software for depositing annotated sequences in GenBank.

Keywords: Bankit; GenBank; NCBI; sequin; tbl2asn.