[Dictionary] ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements)

An NHGRI-funded international research consortium, launched in September 2003, that systematically catalogs the functional and regulatory elements of the human genome (and, since ENCODE3, the mouse genome) using standardized assays -- ChIP-seq for transcription-factor binding and histone marks, RNA-seq for transcription, DNase-seq/ATAC-seq for chromatin accessibility, and Hi-C for 3D genome contacts -- run across a wide panel of cell types and tissues. Data is released through the ENCODE Portal under standardized accessions (ENCSR for experiments, ENCFF for files), validated and harmonized by a central Data Coordination Center, and no dataset is 'ENCODE data' unless it was actually submitted to and processed through that pipeline.