What are EST,accession number,symbol,GeneID&RefSeq? - anyone can give me answer please.... (Nov/01/2005 )

Hi dear all,
I am green for scientific web surf. Can anyone tell me what are ESTs and Accession numbers? When will a RNA/DNA sequence be called RefSeq? And what is the different between Gene symbol and GeneID? When will they be designated to a sequence?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Ribo

Hi!

EST´s = expressed sequence tags, sequences that are expressed (RNA) but have not been shown to code for proteins

Accession numbers = numbers used for th eunique identification of sequences.

Gene ID = same as above, the gene can clearly be identified by the geneID, very helpful if using something like databases in which you can search your gene according to the geneID

Gene symbol = most of the genes have at least one official gene symbol which is then usually used to name the gene; so not everybody will use another name but mean the same thing

Cheers

Hi Bomber,
Thankyou for your useful answers : ) As you say it seems me better to use GeneID than symbol.
Could you also tell me when wil a gene get a geneID or symbol? Sometimes I see descriptions of the gene function like "similar to....". This sounds its function is known, BUT not sure. Why researchers make such statements since they are not sure what the gene does?
Thanks a lot again!

Ribo

Hi

More often that not these assignments are made by a pipeline of programs....the complete details of how these pseudo-functions are assigned are in most databases help files. An excellent example of automated assignment is the EnsEMBL database and its curated vertebrate counterpart, vega (not automated). The documentation for both is excellent and I think well worth reading if you are going to delve into databases on a semi-regular basis.

EnsEMBL
vega