Ensembl HelpView
The Ensembl project provides automated genome annotation, with a focus on chordate organisms.
To read more about how the gene set is determined go here . Visualisation of genes, annotation and associated information are available from a number of pages.
The generic URL for the project page is http://www.ensembl.org/. The main page gives introductory information and links to species-specific data sets, as well as additional documentation.
Each species supported by Ensembl has its own home page. Species-specific home pages normally provide:
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Information about the genome sequence used.
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Basic release information and statistics.
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A link to a clickable site map
The Ensembl Pre! release site displays new or updated genome sequence assemblies. It is provided as an "early access" site for our users. As the full gene-build has not been completed at this stage, Ensembl gene sets and additional informations are not available. Pre! site information is not available from our ftp site or using the API.
About Ensembl
See the 'generic' Ensembl home page for basic information and links to documentation, including an introductory tour, detailed worked examples for you to try, and links to published papers about Ensembl.
Throughout the web site, click on the blue "Help" button at the top right of every page to see page-specific help. You may also search the help database using the box provided at the top of this window. A list of all available "Help" articles is browsable, at the left of any help page. Furthermore, a contact to our Helpdesk (helpdesk@ensembl.org) is provided, please use this resource for any questions or comments about Ensembl.
Lost? Try our sitemap or the index page to help and documentation
Ensembl Entry Points
You can carry out a search across all the species within Ensembl at the top of the generic Ensembl home page. For species-specific searches, use the species pages.
You can enter the multi-species BioMart data export tool via each species or from the generic home page.
The species home pages provide several ways to access the data in Ensembl.
Search
This allows you to search the whole Ensembl database of genomic information, or categories of information within it. On the generic Ensembl home page you can carry out a search across all the species within Ensembl. On a species homepage (or from any other page within the web site), searches are limited to a single species.
Display Chromosome
Enter a chromosome number and a location on that chromosome (in base pairs by default, or specify kb or Mb) to jump to a 'ContigView' display of the features in that region.
Retrieve a sequence
Jump to 'ExportView' pages to download a region of the genomic sequence, with or without annotation.
Advanced data retrieval tool
Jump to 'BioMart' to export tables of gene information, or sequences, straight from the Ensembl databases (no programming required!)
BLAST
To locate regions in the genome (or predicted transcripts and proteins) that have sequence similarity to your own sequence of interest.
SSAHA or BLAT
Try SSAHA or BLAT, fast algorithms for similarity searching.
Browse a Chromosome
Clicking on any chromosome will take you to the corresponding 'MapView' page, which will allow you to select a region to view by clicking on a band, specify a chromosome region using marker names, jump to a view of regions in other species where synteny is conserved (available between human, mouse and rat) and to see basic statistics on that chromosome.
Ensembl courses
Did you know? Ensembl offers day-long workshops in the browser, including BioMart. Contact us at helpdesk@ensembl.org if you are interested. Have a look at our Blog for new updates.