The Los Alamos hepatitis C sequence database

MOTIVATION The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a significant threat to public health worldwide. The virus is highly variable and evolves rapidly, making it an elusive target for the immune system and for vaccine and drug design. At present, some 30 000 HCV sequences have been published. A central website that provides annotated sequences and analysis tools will be helpful to HCV scientists worldwide. RESULTS The HCV sequence database collects and annotates sequence data and provides them to the public via a website that contains a user-friendly search interface and a large number of sequence analysis tools, based on the model of the highly regarded Los Alamos HIV database. The HCV sequence database was officially launched in September 2003. Since then, its usage has steadily increased and is now at an average of approximately 280 visits per day from distinct IP addresses. AVAILABILITY The HCV website can be accessed via http://hcv.lanl.gov and http://hcv-db.org.