Species-Specific Genome Sequence Databases: A Practical Review

Abstract

This chapter presents a use case illustrating the search for homologues of a known protein in species-specific genome sequence databases. The results from different species-specific resources are compared to each other and to results obtained from a more general genome sequence database (Phytozome). Various options and settings relevant when searching these databases are discussed. For example, it is shown how the choice of reference sequence set in a given database influences the results one obtains. The provided examples illustrate some problems and pitfalls related to interpreting results obtained from species-specific genome sequence databases.

Keywords: BLAST; Genome sequence database.