The WebACT database

The results of the pre-computed blast comparisons between all pairs of sequences are stored in a relational database along with the full EMBL format records for each of the sequences.

In order for the blast results to be loaded into WebACT, the co-ordinates of each blast hit need to be adjusted to take into account the chunking of the query sequence, making each hit co-ordinate relative to the full sequence record. Storing the data in this manner allows for specific regions of the comparison to be readily selected using a number of different methods.

The name of each gene is extracted from the full genome record, along with the co-ordinates of that gene, and stored in the database. This allows the region of a genome containing a particular gene to be quickly identified, and a sequence record constructed representing the region flanking the requested gene

Genome updates and new genomes

We have implemented an automatic update system within WebACT.

The genome sequences and annotations held at Genome Reviews are actively curated and have a release cycle of 2 weeks. On a monthly basis, WebACT will automatically check Genome Reviews data releases, and where necessary will automatically update the local database for the genomes and comparison files.

This system will also check for any new genome sequences and will automatically compare them to all the other genome sequences, and the stored sequence, annotation and the comparison files will be added to the WebACT database.