Thanks to today’s technology, such as BLAST and BIGSdb, the majority (97%) of sequences can be automatically assigned as an allele of a gene by comparing them with existing alleles within carefully calculated thresholds. However, new alleles that have not been identified before are discovered all the time, and the computer sometimes assigns these incorrectly. If an incorrect allele is assigned by the computer, this can lead to a chain-reaction where other incorrect alleles are assigned. This means that a small proportion of alleles require manual curation, where a curator uses their knowledge and experience to decide whether to assign a new allele.
