because profile SCFGs were too computationally expensive. However, the latest versions of INFERNAL are fast enough so that the BLAST step is no longer necessary. The second MSA is the “full” alignment, and is created as a result of a search using the covariance model against the sequence database. All detected homologs are aligned to the model, giving the automatically produced full alignment. History Version 1.0 of Rfam was launched in 2003 and contained 25 ncRNA families and annotated about 50 000 ncRNA genes. In 2005, version 6.1 was released and contained 379 families annotating over 280 000 genes. In August 2012, version 11.0 contained 2208 RNA families, while the current version (14.6, released in July 2021) annotates 4070 families. Major releases and publications 2003 - Rfam: an RNA family database. 2005 - Rfam: annotating non-coding RNAs in complete genomes. 2008 - The RNA WikiProject: community annotation of RNA families. 2008 - Rfam: updates to the RNA families database. 2011 - Rfam: Wikipedia, clans and the “decimal” release. 2012 - Rfam 11.0: 10 years of RNA families. 2014 - Rfam 12.0: updates to the RNA families database. 2017 - Rfam 13.0: shifting to a genome-centric resource for non-coding RNA families. 2020 - Rfam 14: expanded coverage of metagenomic, viral and microRNA families. Problems The genomes of higher eukaryotes contain many ncRNA-derived pseudogenes and repeats. Distinguishing these non-functional copies from functional ncRNA is a formidable challenge. Introns are not modeled by covariance models. References External links Rfam website at the European Bioinformatics Institute INFERNAL software package miRBase Genetic engineering in the United Kingdom Genetics databases Molecular biology Public-domain software with source code RNA Science and technology in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District Wellcome Trust