General Directions for GenBank Flat File Format

GenBank records are commonly presented in GenBank Flat File Format which provides general information and annotations of a sequence, followed by the sequence itself. (GenBank also supports FASTA format which is more commonly used.)

Please make note of the following:

Brief directions:

  1. Go to GenBank.
  2. Find an mtDNA sequence you want. (Search "Nucleotide" for the sequence ID, or "homo sapiens mitochodrion" or use my sequence.)
  3. Copy the text starting with the "LOCUS" line and ending in "//". At minimum you need everything between "ORIGIN" and "//".
  4. Save the text somewhere on your computer.
  5. Click on the "Browse" button on the mthap page and select the text file.
  6. Click on "Upload."