Recent
years have seen an explosive growth in biological data. Large sequencing
projects are producing increasing quantities of nucleotide sequences. The
contents of nucleotide databases are doubling in size approximately every 14
months. The latest release of GenBank (V.139) exceeded two billion base pairs.
Not only the size of sequence data is rapidly increasing, but also the number
of characterized genes from many organisms and protein structures doubles
about every two years. To cope with this great quantity of data, a new
scientific discipline has emerged: bioinformatics,
biocomputing or computational biology
Entries Bases Species
10649134 12385903706 Homo
sapiens
6753652 8049817803 Mus
musculus
1267882 5747965742 Rattus
norvegicus
1663937 3566605068 Bos
taurus
1287702 2540551749 Danio
rerio
2499723 1998269811 Zea
mays
1149146 1500985768 Oryza
sativa
226213 1251961979 Strongylocentrotus
purpuratus
1236899 1075752229 Sus
scrofa
1175934 961525020 Xenopus
tropicalis
1426915 893771790 Canis
familiaris
655519 845341580 Drosophila
melanogaster
800633 770627209 Gallus
gallus
1198209 758043364 Arabidopsis
thaliana
209185 691252171 Pan
troglodytes
868038 507883206 Triticum
aestivum
397437 468939096 Medicago
truncatula
784170 465881813 Sorghum
bicolor
69335 463195893 Macaca
mulatta
696319 421330392 Ciona
intestinalis