European Nucleotide Archive (ENA)

Biogenomics

About

The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) provides a comprehensive open record of the world's nucleotide sequencing information and a platform for the management and analysis of sequence and related data. ENA is designated by the ELIXIR infrastructure both as a Core Data Resource, and a Deposition Database.

An interview with Guy Cochrane (ENA)

Type & number of data sets

ENA covers many data types in a number of interlinked database tables. A list can be found at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/portal/api/results?dataPortal=ena

Data can be retrieved in different formats and with easy file download options through RESTful services: EMBL Flatfile format, FASTA format for sequences and XML Format. Details about formats: https://ena-browser-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/browser/search/advanced.html#downloadena-records

Core Services

The ENA browser brings together a set of services via web interfaces, build upon underlying APIs. Of relevance for Blue-Cloud are two services:

• ENA Data Discovery (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/advanced-search)
• ENA Data Retrieval (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/home)

How to use the API’s and build machine-to-machine services can be found in the documentation of the ENA Portal API: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/portal/api/doc

Function in Blue-Cloud

The ENA system contains many data types / classes and a huge volume of data, which are only partly  marine-related. ENA stands to benefit from the Blue- Cloud project because the project allows it to connect  to all these different data types and allows scientists to access in an interdisciplinary way all these data.