Ensembl is now busy with preparations for our next release, Ensembl 50! We’re working hard and we’ll keep you updated on what’s in store for this release. Our biggest new development will be our revamped website. As usual, we have updated some species and provided new data for other species. Keep reading for an outline of what we aim to provide in Ensembl 50.

New web interface:
The most exciting change in Ensembl 50 will be a new web interface: Simpler, Better, Faster is what we’re aiming for. Not only will pages take less time to load, but they will also look a little different. We’re hoping that we will have improved the navigability and discoverability of the site so that you can make the best use possible of the data we provide. We have taken into account your messages at helpdesk and your voices in courses. Let us know what you think by emailing helpdesk@ensembl.org !

Genebuild team:
In terms of new data for Ensembl 50, we have constructed new gene sets for tetraodon and cow. Vega/Havana (manual annotation) has released new gene sets for human and mouse so these will be displayed on our website alongside Ensembl genes.

For human, you may know that Ensembl and Havana merge identical transcripts. We have improved the Vega/Havana merge using the latest Havana gene set. Because untranslated regions are notoriously difficult to determine, we’ve used ditags when predicting UTRs for human. Finally, we have removed some dodgy-looking gene models that were highlighted by the Alpheus project.

For low-coverage genomes, gene models are predicted by projecting the human gene models down onto the 2x genomes. In this release, cat and pika have been updated by projecting current human gene models onto the existing assembly.

We’ve also updated the gene sets for C. elegans and chimp. Release notes for C. elegans can be found on the WormBase website. Chimp has an updated gene set to include more chimp-specific predictions, and genes projected from human onto chimp are updated.

The horse genomic assembly (EquCab2) has recently been updated such that chromosome 27 has been shortened. This is not a new genebuild as such, but we have modified our data to reflect this change. Zebrafish Agilent V2 Arrays have been mapped to cDNA and genomic sequences.

Canonical transcripts (the longest translations) have been labeled for all species in the database, though this will not appear in the browser. As usual, non-coding RNA genes have also been updated for most species, and cDNA alignments have been redone for human and mouse.

Variation and Functional Genomics teams:
Our Variation team plans to provide updated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for tetraodon, cow, human, chimp and orangutan. Our Functional Genomics team will provide promoter cis-regulatory motifs from here. They will also update the current regulatory build on human.

Comparative Genomics team:
Our Comparative Genomics team is extending their multiple alignments with new species and low-coverage (2x) genomes to include:
* 4-species: catarrhini primates EPO (Enredo-Pecan-Ortheus) alignments (human, chimp, orangutan, macaque )
* 12-species: amniote vertebrates Mercator-Pecan alignments (current 10-species alignments + Pongo pygmaeus and Equus caballus)
* 23-species: eutherian mammals EPO (Enredo-Pecan-Ortheus) alignments (all 2X genomes + current 7-species alignments + Pongo pygmaeus and Equus caballus)

GERP scores (% conservation on a basepair level for the 23-species eutherian mammals alignments) will be released.

The Compara (comparative genomics) team is working hard! They’re also providing new pairwise alignments:
* All the pairwise (between two species), whole-genome alignments (using tBLAT) will be updated using a new pipeline that follows a best-in-genome approach to filter spurious hits.
* The pairwise alignments for more closely related species (using BLASTz-net) will be updated for the following species so that the reference species is human:
. human vs Pongo_pygmaeus
. human vs Loxodonta africana
. human vs Echinops telfairi
. human vs Oryctolagus cuniculus
. human vs Dasypus novemcinctus
. human vs Myotis lucifugus
. human vs Bos Taurus
. human vs Ochotona princeps
. human vs Felis catus
Sitewise dN/dS values will be provided in our gene trees to detect positions in the alignments that are under different evolutionary pressure.

Web team:
Last but not least, please note that from Release 50 we will no longer be providing the ‘ssaha’ sequence search. If you wish to run your own ‘ssaha’ sequence search you can download the files to generate the search hashes from our FTP site. Alternatively, use BLAT (the BLAST-like Alignment Tool) which is equally fast and also demands exact matches.

That’s it for now! Any questions, just email helpdesk. We will be posting more information as the release date gets closer (we are aiming for end of July!)

Yesterday, Ensembl released a new version of the browser and database (version 49). Along with new species, homologue predictions, and new code in our API, there have been changes in how the multiple alignments are done on the whole-genome scale. Have a look at the news for more details.

We are looking forward to release 50! as we are working on some new features. Keep your eye out in August for this next release. A reminder, we will not release another version between now and August, and updates may appear in the Pre! site but not in the main site, for that time.

Please explore features on release 49 such as BLAST which is now configured to align queries against top-level sequences (i.e. chromosomes and scaffolds), and BLAT, a fast alignment program which is now the default selection.

Paralogues are shown in blue in GeneTreeView to help aid your eye.

Upcoming workshops -April

(March workshops are listed in a previous post)

Browser workshops at the VIB Ghent and Leuven (31 Mar – 2 Apr)
Browser workshop (focus: rat) at the ULB Brussels (EURATools) (16 Apr)
Browser workshop at the BCB UCL/Birkbeck (21 Apr)
Module in the EBI roadshow in Poitiers (23, 24 Apr)
API workshop at the Dept. of Genetics, Cambridge (28, 29, 30 Apr)

Keep your eye out for Release 49, which is due on Tuesday 18 March. The delay is due to the scheduled downtime and maintance at the Sanger and EBI this weekend, which has caused some trouble. However, Release 49 will soon be visible to the community!

New features in release 49 will includeBLAST against top-level sequences on all species, updates on theGeneTreeView page that should make things easier to see, and new Ensembl gene sets for Orangutan, Horse and and Takifugu. FlyBase 5.4 will be imported for Fruitfly. For API users, the regulatory features will be moved from the core API to the functional genomics API.

Also, a word of warning to those using our mouse clones under ‘DAS sources’. MICER clones and the bMQ set (129S7/AB2.2 in the ‘DAS Sources’ menu of ContigView). The clones, originally mapped to NCBI M36, are lifted over to the new assembly (NCBIM 37) coordinates. The drawing indicates where the clone lifts over to in the new assembly. However, the pop-up box shows the coordinates of the original mappings. This is indicated in Ensembl by the ‘NCBIM36’ label above the coordinates.

Write our helpdesk if you are confused!

This new release hosts an updated zebrafish assembly (Zv7) along with newly determined gene sets for zebrafish, platypus and chimpanzee.

SequenceAlignView is a new page allowing sequences to be compared across strains (mouse and rat)/individuals (humans). Variations can be displayed in this view. See the sitemap to find the page.

Finally, three new videos are available in the help. See the video tutorials here:
http://www.ensembl.org/common/Workshops_Online

More news is available on our website. Come find out what’s new!

Giulietta (Ensembl)

The latest update of the Ensembl Genome Brower and associated databases occurred 13 June, 2007 (release 45). This release was coordinated with the publication of the ENCODE project in the journal Nature. The first stage of this project focused on an in-depth view of 1% of the genome, contributing to a set of regulatory features that has now been incorporated into Ensembl, accessible in ContigView.

BioMart 0.6 has just been released, including an improved layout and response times for result viewing. In addition, the query can be exported in Perl API format
via the new ‘Perl’ button.

Those are the major updates at this time.