If use SILVA for your research or applications please cite:

Chuvochina M, Gerken J, Frentrup M, Sandikci Y, Goldmann R, Freese HM, Göker M, Sikorski J, Yarza P, Quast C, Peplies J, Glöckner FO, Reimer LC (2026) SILVA in 2026: a global core biodata resource for rRNA within the DSMZ digital diversity. Nucleic Acids Research, gkaf1247.

If you use SINA, please additionally cite

Pruesse, E, Peplies, J and Glöckner, FO (2012) SINA: accurate high-throughput multiple sequence alignment of ribosomal RNA genes. Bioinformatics, 28, 1823-1829

If you use ARB, please additionally cite

Westram R, Bader K, Pruesse E, Kumar Y, Meier H, Glöckner FO, Ludwig W (2011) ARB: a software environment for sequence data. In: de Bruijn FJ (ed) Handbook of Molecular Microbial Ecology I: Metagenomics and Complementary Approaches. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp 399-406

If you refer to Candidate Taxonomic Units, please additionally cite

Yarza P, Yilmaz P, Pruesse E, Glöckner FO, Ludwig W, Schleifer KH, Whitman WB, Euzéby J, Amann R, Rosselló-Móra R (2014) Uniting the classification of cultured and uncultured bacteria and archaea using 16S rRNA gene sequences. Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 12, pages 635–645

For primer evaluation, please consider additionally citing

Klindworth A, Pruesse E, Schweer T, Peplies J, Quast C, Horn M, Glöckner FO (2013) Evaluation of general 16S ribosomal RNA gene PCR primers for classical and next-generation sequencing-based diversity studies. Nucl. Acids Res. 41:e1

These publications refer to earlier versions of our databases, tools, or methods. They are provided for historical context and should not be cited in new work, as more recent references are now available.

Glöckner FO, Yilmaz P, Quast C, Gerken J, Beccati A, Ciuprina A, Bruns G, Yarza P, Peplies J, Westram R, Ludwig W (2017) 25 years of serving the community with ribosomal RNA gene reference databases and tools. J. Biotechnol.

Beccati A, Gerken J, Quast C, Yilmaz P, Glöckner FO (2017) SILVA tree viewer: interactive web browsing of the SILVA phylogenetic guide trees. BMC Bioinformatics 18:43

Yilmaz P, Parfrey LW, Yarza P, Gerken J, Pruesse E, Quast C, Schweer T, Peplies J, Ludwig W, Glöckner FO (2014) The SILVA and "All-species Living Tree Project (LTP)" taxonomic frameworks. Nucl. Acids Res. 42:D643-D648

Quast C, Pruesse E, Yilmaz P, Gerken J, Schweer T, Yarza P, Peplies J, Glöckner FO (2013) The SILVA ribosomal RNA gene database project: improved data processing and web-based tools. Nucl. Acids Res. 41 (D1): D590-D596.

Pruesse E, Quast C, Knittel K, Fuchs BM, Ludwig WG, Peplies J, Glöckner FO (2007) SILVA: a comprehensive online resource for quality checked and aligned ribosomal RNA sequence data compatible with ARB. Nucl. Acids Res. 35:7188-7196