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Are Genbank's accession numbers unique identifiers?

Let me start by saying I'm not a bio professional, so I apologize if this question sounds either simple or makes no sense. I'm working with my girlfriend, who is a bio person, on building something similar to the ITS2 database.

I'm trying to figure out if using an accession number as the primary key (unique identifier) in our database is a good idea or if I need to generate my own ID.

Are the below true?: If the strain changes, the accession number is different. If there is a new publication of a mutation, accession number changes as well. Would the accession number be equivalent to the ISBN of a book? Or perhaps the model number of a product?

If the accession number is specific to one particular "upload" to GenBank then I believe it would work.

Thoughts?

Thank you in advance! I hope I can get this site running soon and that we can help the community, or at least try.

genbank ncbi
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written by Nico • Nico

1 answer

GenBank accession numbers are unique and represent current version of the sequence. NCBI internally used a separate unique identifier gi. These gi numbers are now deprecated for public use. So if an update is warranted then a .N postfix is added to the number. You can see the history of sequence versions of an accession.

Accession prefixes have a specific meaning (LINK).

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written by GenoMax GenoMax

Excellent, thank you! This means I can reference each individual upload with their respective genbank # and I won't have any ID issues. Much appreciated.

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written by Nico • Nico

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