Welcome to the UCSC Genome Browser website. This site contains the reference sequence and working draft assemblies for a large collection of genomes. It also provides portals to the ENCODE and Neandertal projects.

We encourage you to explore these sequences with our tools. The Genome Browser zooms and scrolls over chromosomes, showing the work of annotators worldwide. The Gene Sorter shows expression, homology and other information on groups of genes that can be related in many ways. Blat quickly maps your sequence to the genome. The Table Browser provides convenient access to the underlying database. VisiGene lets you browse through a large collection of in situ mouse and frog images to examine expression patterns. Genome Graphs allows you to upload and display genome-wide data sets.

The UCSC Genome Browser is developed and maintained by the Genome Bioinformatics Group, a cross-departmental team within the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering (CBSE) at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). If you have feedback or questions concerning the tools or data on this website, feel free to contact us on our public mailing list.

To receive announcements of new genome assembly releases, new software features, updates and training seminars by email, subscribe to the genome-announce mailing list.

24 August 2010 - New Drag and Reorder Functionality Released

We are pleased to announce new functionality in the Genome Browser. It is now possible to rearrange the order that tracks appear in the browser image directly from the browser image itself. To reorder tracks, click-and-hold the side label or gray mini-button of a single track and drag the highlighted track to a new position within the image.

Because reordering is now available in the browser image itself, we have removed the "enable track reordering" option from the configuration page.

Thanks to Tim Dreszer and the rest of the team for implementing and testing this feature.

20 August 2010 - New ENCODE Integrated Regulation Super-track Released: We are pleased to announce the release of the ENCODE Integrated Regulation super-track. Read more.

18 August 2010 - Cat Genome Browser Available: We have released a Genome Browser for the latest assembly of Cat (Felis catus). Read more.

The sequence and annotation data displayed in the Genome Browser are freely available for any use with the following conditions:

• Genome sequence data use restrictions are noted within the species sections on the Credits page.
• Some annotation tracks contributed by external collaborators contain proprietary data that have specific use restrictions. To check for restrictions associated with a particular genome assembly, review the database/README.txt file in the assembly's downloads directory.

The UCSC, Ensembl, and NCBI browser and annotation groups have established a common set of minimum requirements for public display of genome data made available after Spring 2009, described here.

The Genome Browser and Blat software are free for academic, nonprofit, and personal use. A license is required for commercial use. See the Licenses page for more information.

Program-driven use of this software is limited to a maximum of one hit every 15 seconds and no more than 5,000 hits per day.

For assistance with questions or problems regarding the UCSC Genome Browser software, database, genome assemblies, or release cycles, see the FAQ.