Finding species and assembly information on the Ensembl Rapid release genome browser, Demo

Newly imported genomes are added to Ensembl Rapid Release. These genomes have minimal annotation, with genes mapped onto the genome, InterProScan protein domain analysis and BLAST indexing. Lightweight homology predictions are provided rather than full comparative genomics analysis, and there is no BioMart.

From the Rapid Release homepage, click on View and download available data for all species.

Here we have a list of all the species available in Rapid Release, including latin and common names, genome accession and annotation source. There are also links out to the FTP site where you can download whole genome flatfiles.

Use the search box to search for “Diabrotica balteata” which is the scientific name for the Cucumber beetle.

Clicking on the scientific name will take you to the species page. Here you can see links to example data and statistics about the genome. Clicking on the example gene “DIABBA_LOCUS6468” will take you to its gene page.

The gene page has a summary of the gene information, including a table of the transcripts. Selecting ‘Homologues’ from the left-hand menu will load a table showing a list of homologues calculated between the cucumber beetle slc35d2 gene and a set of genome representatives primarily from insect species.

Rapid also has BLAST functionality – you can find the link to the BLAST tool located in the tool bar at the top of the screen. Following the link to use the BLAST tool, you will see that the cucumber beetle has automatically been selected as the target genome. You can now run BLAST searches for DNA or protein sequences.