Can you bank on GenBank?

Sequencing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is now a routine laboratory procedure. Most journals insist that published sequences be submitted to data bases such as GenBank, where they are publicly available. But quality control of the raw data often depends solely on the original scientists. So just how reliable are the sequences in the data bases? According to a new paper by Forster in the Annals of Human Genetics, more than half of all published human mtDNA studies contain mistakes, a level so high that geneticists could be drawing incorrect conclusions in population and evolutionary studies. Much greater controls are needed, both from journals and from individual scientists. Fortunately, some new methods for detecting errors using phylogenetic networks have recently been proposed. How effective these are remains to be tested.