The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. NCBI supports research in computational biology, develops software tools for sequencing analysis, and creates and maintains public bioinformatics databases.
It provides BLAST, a tool for determining sequence similarity. And among its many databases for exploring human and other genomes are Nucleotide for sequence, dbSNP for small-scale variation, and Gene for comprehensive, aggregated information relating to individual genes.
The phrase "genomics gateway" is used here to refer to an online collection of databases and tools related to genomes and genes. Examples of genomics gateways include those maintained by NCBI, EMBL-EBI and SRI International (e.g., BioCyc).
A broad scope, typically encompassing databases on genes, variation, sequence, gene expression, genotype-phenotype relationships, etc.
Maintenance by stable, governmental and/or non-profit parent organizations (e.g., the National Center for Biotechnology Information)
Participation in international consortia for genomics information sharing (e.g., the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration)
Extensive linkages between databases within gateways (e.g., between the Ensembl Genome Browser and the Expression Atlas)
Extensive linkages between databases across gateways (e.g., between NCBI Gene and BioCyc)
Genomics gateways are excellent destinations for launching explorations of genes and genomes. They offer similar searching and analysis tools and work from a shared set of genomic data. Despite this similarity, each repository has unique functionalities for discovery, visualization, and analysis.
NCBI maintains a suite of Genes and Expression resources, including:
Note: Gene links out to numerous NCBI databases, including dbGaP, the Genetic Testing Registry, and GEO Profiles.