Ensembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63 have been released

A milestone release: This is the final release on the current Ensembl platforms. From summer 2026, all new data will be accessible from the new site at beta.ensembl.org, which hosts over 5,200 genomes across animals, plants, bacteria, archaea, and fungi.

The current Ensembl platforms will remain available via Ensembl archives. 

Key updates for Ensembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63

• Human: New “Ensembl Canonical Extended” transcript flag for transcripts with extended 5’/3′ ends.

• Vertebrates: New assemblies added for Norwegian Red cattle, donkey, and 10 pig breeds. Updated regulatory data for Atlantic salmon.

• Plants: 26 new oat (Avena) genomes added, plus updated assemblies for tomato, lettuce, artichoke, and more. 

• Comparative Genomics (Compara): Expanded pig breed analyses (now 30 breeds), updated human within-species alignments, new oat pangenome protein trees, and various alignment additions across plants, metazoa, and microbes.

• Variation: Updated to EVA release 8, new variation data for 3 species (mallard duck, dromedary camel, Atlantic herring), and several new Ensembl VEP plugins for mitochondrial, protein stability, and promoter annotation are now available.

• Metazoa: 20 updated assemblies; multiple older assemblies retired and replaced.

• Other news: Archives from Ensembl 100–103 (2020–2021) have been retired, and external references and InterProScan annotations have been rerun across all divisions

Read more on the Ensembl Blog