Question

The European Bioinformatics Institute maintains which nucleotide database?

• A. GenBank
• B. DDBJ
• C. EMBL
• D. UniProt

Hint:

Remember the international sequence databases: \[ \boxed{ \begin{aligned} \text{GenBank} &\rightarrow \text{USA} \\ \text{EMBL/ENA} &\rightarrow \text{Europe} \\ \text{DDBJ} &\rightarrow \text{Japan} \end{aligned} } \] All three databases exchange sequence data daily.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Concept: The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), located in the United Kingdom, maintains the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (now part of the European Nucleotide Archive, ENA). It stores nucleotide sequences submitted by researchers worldwide and exchanges data daily with GenBank and DDBJ to ensure identical global sequence records.

Step 1: Understand the major nucleotide databases.
The three major international nucleotide databases are:
• GenBank (USA)
• EMBL/ENA (Europe)
• DDBJ (Japan) These databases synchronize their data regularly.

Step 2: Role of EMBL database.
EMBL stores:
• DNA sequences
• RNA sequences
• Genome sequences
• Annotation information Researchers worldwide submit newly determined nucleotide sequences to this database.

Step 3: Eliminate incorrect options.

• GenBank is maintained by NCBI (USA).
• DDBJ is maintained in Japan.
• UniProt is a protein database.
• EMBL is maintained by the European Bioinformatics Institute. Final Answer: \[ \boxed{Option (C) is correct \]