Hi all,

I am not sure if this question still belongs to the scope of BioStars. It is my first time submitting mRNA-Seq data to SRA for publication so I wish somebody who has experience can shed some lights on my problem.

Since I have no previous submission whatsoever. I am trying to complete both my BioProject as well as BioSample submissions within SRA wizard in Submission Portal according to the instruction here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/docs/submit/ (under Options for depositing and updating the SRA data: "You can complete both your BioProject as well as BioSample submissions within SRA wizard in Submission Portal.")

However, in the submission portal - Step 7 SRA Metadata, I was asked to provide either neither sample_name nor biosample_accession in the spreadsheet that you can download here: ftp://ftp-trace.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/metadata_table/SRA_metadata.xlsx

In the spreadsheet, it says, "If you created project previously, provide accession in the form of PRJNA# in the column bioproject_accession. If you just created project in the SRA wizard, leave the column bioproject_accession empty."
-> Okay, so I can leave biosample_accession empty.

On the other hand, for sample_name, it only says "If you created samples previously, provide accessions in the form of SAMN# in the column sample_accession."
-> What if I didn't create samples before???

I just figured out how to directly upload the data I stored on the supercomputer to SRA via Aspera command line upload. I can definitely share my "pleasant" experience with you as a tutorial later.

Please provide some feedback for my current question if you have any similar experience :)

Thanks,
Candice