Accession number (bioinformatics)

Dr.C.V.Narasimha murthy
An accession number in bioinformatics is a unique identifier given to a DNA or protein
sequence record to allow for tracking of different versions of that sequence record and the
associated sequence over time in a single data repository. Because of its relative stability,
accession numbers can be utilized as foreign keys for referring to a sequence object, but not
necessarily to a unique sequence. All sequence information repositories implement the concept
of "accession number" but might do so with subtle variations.

Accession numbers in specific data resources

UniProt (SwissProt) Knowledgebase

In UniProt documentation, the stated role of the accession number is "to provide a stable way of
identifying entries from release to release." One entry (or record) might be associated with
multiple accession numbers. Thus, in UniProt, there is no specific relationship between accession
number and sequence; the primary relationship is between accession number and knowledgebase
record, and a single knowledgebase record can refer to multiple sequences. In the flat version of
the data, AC is the field delimiter for the accession number, the first being the "primary
accession number" and all subsequent values being "seconary accession numbers". The proper
key field for tracking a UniProt record is the primary accession number. The group of accession
numbers associated with a knowledgebase record depends on the history of the record with
respect to mergers and splits. New accession numbers arise in two main ways: new sequences
(common) and knowledgebase record splits (rare).[1]

GenBank

EMBL

Main article: European Molecular Biology Laboratory

DDBJ

Main article: DNA Databank of Japan

Commonly encountered accession numbers

 Uniprot ID
 Unified Uniprot Accession
 Uniprot-Swissprot Accession
 Uniprot-Swissprot ID
 Unified Uniprot ID
Dr.C.V.Narasimha murthy. Notes made on a student request AUG 2022.
  Refseq DNA ID
 Entrez Gene ID
 CCDS ID
 Vega translation ID
 Vega Transcript ID
 Vega Peptide ID
 Vega Gene ID
 HUGO ID
 MIM ID

Dr.C.V.Narasimha murthy. Notes made on a student request AUG 2022.