Taming the reference genome jungle: the refget sequence collection standard.

Refget seqcol standard enables unambiguous, content-based identification and comparison of 96 reference genomes, addressing widespread incompatibility in genomics.

• Why it matters: Inconsistent naming, undocumented differences, and lack of formal comparison mechanisms hinder reliable use of reference genomes, impacting reproducibility and data integration in genomics.
• What they did: The authors developed the refget seqcol standard, including a data schema, encoding algorithm, retrieval API, and comparison protocol, and applied it to 60 human and 36 mouse reference genomes.
• The result: Analysis showed some consistent sequence subsets and coordinate systems but also substantial incompatibility and duplicates, demonstrating the standard’s potential to improve transparency, reuse, and interoperability in genomic research.