Cited by 270Genomics and Phylogenetic StudiesFractal and DNA sequence analysisChromosomal and Genetic Variations

Terminating contamination: large-scale search identifies more than 2,000,000 contaminated entries in GenBank

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Steinegger, Martin, Salzberg, Steven L.·2020·Genome Biology

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Genomic analyses are sensitive to contamination in public databases caused by incorrectly labeled reference sequences. Here, we describe Conterminator, an efficient method to detect and remove incorrectly labeled sequences by an exhaustive all-against-all sequence comparison. Our analysis reports contamination of 2,161,746, 114,035, and 14,148 sequences in the RefSeq, GenBank, and NR databases, respectively, spanning the whole range from draft to “complete” model organism genomes. Our method scales linearly with input size and can process 3.3 TB in 12 days on a 32-core computer. Conterminator can help ensure the quality of reference databases. Source code (GPLv3): https://github.com/martin-steinegger/conterminator

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  • The bacterial protein A0A1C5UEQ5 is unlikely to be a contaminant due to its contig length.

    “The bacterial protein (UniProt: A0A1C5UEQ5), encoded on a contig of length 138,559 (GenBank: FMFM01000010), is unlikely to be a contaminant due to its length29.”

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Authors
Steinegger, M., & Salzberg, S. L.
Affiliations
  • Seoul National University (KR)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
Steinegger, Martin
Venue
Genome Biology
Published
2020-05-12
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
115-115
ISSN
  • 1465-6906 (ISSN-L)
  • 1474-760X
OpenAlex
W3028050938
Cited by
246
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 52 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 13
FWCI
11.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Genome biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Seoul National University Open Repository (Seoul National University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (1744309, R01-HG006677)
  • National Institutes of Health (HG006677)
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (R01HG006677)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35GM130151)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Fractal and DNA sequence analysis
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Chromosomal and Genetic Variations
Keywords
GenBank, reference sequences, contamination detection
MeSH terms
Animals, Humans, Genome, Databases, Nucleic Acid, Mice, DNA Contamination

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