Expanded transcript set available in the latest human GRCh38 partial release on the new Ensembl site

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In the current Ensembl release (Ensembl 115), the GRCh38 human Ensembl/GENCODE reference annotation was updated to include approximately 121,000 new protein-coding transcripts. This expanded set is based on long-read RNA-seq data processed by the manually supervised automated pipeline TAGENE, which is presented as the source in both browser and files.

The latest partial release for GRCh38 on the new Ensembl (partial release 2026-01-26) includes this new geneset. Some genes and genomic features in this set have several hundred transcripts, such as ZBTB20 (ENSG00000181722) which has 360 transcripts.

To improve user experience, there is a limit on the number of transcripts that will be displayed in the Genome browser and Entity viewer per genomic feature. The maximum that will be displayed is 100 transcripts. All transcripts are ranked and the top 100 are displayed. Protein coding transcript ranks are based on evidence from APPRIS, RefSeq, Uniprot, PhyloCSF, and Recount3. Transcripts that have been tagged as MANE Select, MANE Plus Clinical, or Ensembl Canonical are prioritised. Longer CDS models are prioritised. Non-coding transcripts are also sorted based on presence in GENCODE basic catalogue, longest genomic span, longest cDNA and finally oldest stable ID.

All transcripts (including all those beyond the 100 displayed) for this gene set of human GRCh38 can be accessed via the new Ensembl FTP site. 

Please note, partial releases are recommended for short term use. This partial release for GRCh38 (2026-01-26) has superseded the previous partial release (2026-04-28). Thus, the older partial release (2025-04-28) can no longer be selected* to view on the site, though files for this release are still available on the new Ensembl FTP. 

The integrated release for human GRCh38 (2025_02) remains available both on the website and the FTP site.  

* Due to a known bug, if this genome was previously selected or saved via URL, it may still be viewable on the site. The latest partial release can be selected using the Species selector.