New Service From National Center for Biotechnology Information

Published in Probe Volume 3(1-2): January-June 1993

Dennis Benson
National Center for Biotechnology Information
National Library of Medicine
Bethesda, MD

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Library of Medicine, now provides e-mail server access for sequence similarity searching (BLAST) and for record retrieval from sequence databases.

The BLAST e-mail server accepts either a DNA or amino acid query sequence in FASTA format; runs the search against a combined (non-redundant) or a single database; and returns the results in a mail message.

The RETRIEVE e-mail server accepts single or multiple text strings (locus names, accession numbers, keywords, author names, etc.) as queries; runs an IRX search against a specified database; and returns the matching full record(s) as a mail message.

To receive documentation on how to use the servers, send a mail message with the word "help" in the body of the message to:

     BLAST server:          blast@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
     RETRIEVE server:       retrieve@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
     The following BLAST Databases are available:

Name                       Description 
nr                         Non-redundant protein database
                           (selected automatically by
                           blastp; includes SWISS-PROT, PIR,
                           GenPept, and GenPept updates)
swissprot                  SWISS-PROT protein database
pir                        PIR protein database
genpept                    GenPept (translated GenBank)
gpupdate                   GenPept update (cumulative daily
                           updates)
tfd                        Transcription Factors Database 

Name                           Description
nr                         Non-redundant DNA database
                           (selected automatically by
                           blastn; includes GenBank,
                           GenBank updates, EMBL, and EMBL
                           updates)
genbank                    GenBank DNA sequence database
                           (does not include updates)
gbupdate                   GenBank update (cumulative           
                           daily updates)
embl                       EMBL DNA sequence database (does     
                           not include updates)

emblu                      EMBL update (cumulative weekly
                           updates)
vector                     Vector subset of GenBank (LANL)
dbest                      Database of Expressed Sequence
                           Tags (EST's)

Additional Assistance

For additional general information, send e-mail to: info@ncbi.nih.gov. For specific information on the operation of the servers, not covered in the documentation, send e-mail to: blast- help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov or retrieve-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Readers may also write to Dennis Benson at The National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD 20894 or contact him by phone on (301) 496-2475 or by e-mail: benson@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.