GenBank ® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences (Nucleic Acids Research, 2013 Jan;41(D1):D36-42). GenBank is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, which comprises the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ), the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), and GenBank at NCBI. These three organizations exchange data on a daily basis.
A GenBank release occurs every two months and is available from the ftp site. The release notes for the current version of GenBank provide detailed information about the release and notifications of upcoming changes to GenBank. Release notes for previous GenBank releases are also available. GenBank growth statistics for both the traditional GenBank divisions and the WGS division are available from each release. GenBank growth statistics for both the traditional GenBank divisions and the WGS division are available from each release.
An annotated sample GenBank record for a Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene demonstrates many of the features of the GenBank flat file format.