DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) for genome scale research in life science.

The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) has made an effort to collect as much data as possible mainly from Japanese researchers. The increase rates of the data we collected, annotated and released to the public in the past year are 43% for the number of entries and 52% for the number of bases. The increase rates are accelerated even after the human genome was sequenced, because sequencing technology has been remarkably advanced and simplified, and research in life science has been shifted from the gene scale to the genome scale. In addition, we have developed the Genome Information Broker (GIB, http://gib.genes.nig.ac.jp) that now includes more than 50 complete microbial genome and Arabidopsis genome data. We have also developed a database of the human genome, the Human Genomics Studio (HGS, http://studio.nig.ac.jp). HGS provides one with a set of sequences being as continuous as possible in any one of the 24 chromosomes. Both GIB and HGS have been updated incorporating newly available data and retrieval tools.