In Ensembl 103, and subsequent releases, we will be limiting the number of species represented in our gene trees and the BioMart data export tool. These changes are required to most effectively support our rapid growth in the number of available species.
Continue readingCategory: Other news
Gene and protein families retiring
As of release 102, we will be removing the gene and protein family analysis from Ensembl. Information on related genes within and between species is still provided by our gene trees, homologues and alignments.
Continue readingRetirement of Ensembl Pre! site
The Ensembl pre! site will be retired on 31st January 2021.
Continue readingBug report: GRCh37 BLAT queries between 21st January – 20th February 2020
We identified that the GRCh37 BLAT tool was incorrectly using a GRCh38 reference file for all queries performed between 21st January and 20th February 2020.
Continue readingUpdate: Simplifying our GRCh37 Services
Following our consultation on simplifying our GRCh37 services, we have decided to remove all support for non-human data from our dedicated GRCh37 database from release 100 onwards in early 2020. This will impact the website at grch37.ensembl.org, the REST server at grch37.rest.ensembl.org and the database at ensembldb.ensembl.org:3337. Non-human data will still be supported on the e75.ensembl.org archive.
In response to feedback during consultation, access to the full data currently provided by the existing GRCh37 REST services will also be made available for at least a year.
Please see our longer post for more details.
Simplifying our GRCh37 Services
We are considering the removal of support for all non-human species from the grch37.ensembl.org website and database from release 100 onwards, planned for spring next year. This is a copy of the data on our Ensembl v75 archive and has not been updated since 2014. We suggest that anyone working with non-humans switch to either the latest website at www.ensembl.org, or if you specifically need the older data currently on grch37.ensembl.org to use the e75.ensembl.org archive, which has a complete copy of all data originally released in Ensembl v75 and will remain active for the foreseeable future. If you feel that this change will have a significant impact on your analyses, please let us know.
RefSeq column returning for GRCh37
Following the response to our switch to the new RefSeq Match column in the transcript tables, we have reverted the tables on GRCh37 back to the old style. The table now lists the RefSeq column as before. We apologise for any confusion this has caused.
Retiring the admin webcode plugin
For some years we have made our database admin interface publicly available via the Ensembl “public-plugins” repository, allowing you to edit certain fields in your core databases via a web form. However we are now using an alternative interface developed by our production team (written in Python), and will therefore be retiring the old plugin in release 97 (scheduled for June 2019).
If you are currently using the plugin and would like to know more about migrating your project to the new code, please contact us and we’ll try to help!
Changes to FTP directory layout in Ensembl Genomes 43 / Ensembl 96
We will make changes to the directory layouts of both the Ensembl Genomes FTP server (ftp://ftp.ensemblgenomes.org/pub/) and the Ensembl GRCh37 FTP server (ftp://ftp.ensemblorg.ebi.ac.uk/pub/grch37/) that may affect your pipelines. These changes will come into effect in Ensembl Genomes release 43/Ensembl release 96, which are scheduled for April 2019. Here are the details, so that you can plan any required updates to existing scripts and pipelines ahead of the releases.
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Genomics gets global: Ensembl and the VGP
As the community’s capacity for genome sequencing expands, so do its ambitions. Recently, many exciting global genomics projects have been launched, including the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), Darwin Tree of Life (DToL), Earth Biogenome Project EBP, i5K (insects) and 10KP (plants). Between them, they aim to sequence the genomes of every eukaryote on Earth, and Ensembl are excited to take on the annotation of some of those genomes.