Exploring the Ensembl genome databases
Course Summary
The increasing availability of public genome assemblies
for several different species has lead
to a need to develop tools to easily browse and analyse this
data. As a response to this EMBL, EBI and the Sanger Centre
jointly instigated the Ensembl project.
The functions of Ensembl are;
- To perform several different kinds of analysis on the
public data (homology searches, repeat and SNP detection,
gene prediction, database cross-referencing etc) and to
provide an annotated form of the data which includes
this extra information.
- To provide a web front end to the data which allows
users to easily find their gene of interest, and has
a flexible system for browsing the content of the genome.
This course will provide a guided tour around the main features
of the Ensembl web site, and should allow users to make the
most effective use of the data available.
Course content
- Getting to the Ensembl web sites
- Browsing the genome data using the Ensembl genome viewer
- Customising the view in the genome viewer
- Finding a gene of interest using a homology search
- Finding a gene of interest using a text keyword search
- Exporting data from the Ensembl database
- Using the Ensembl Mouse and Trace databases
Pre-requesites
People coming on the course should be familiar with how to
use a web browser.
A (very) basic understanding of eukaryotic gene structure will be
assumed.
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