"The most critical issue is represented, however, by the lack of quality control of sequence entries in major public sequence databases. As a consequence, their use in similarity searches often results in inaccurate identifications, with the best match often favoring ragged sequences and faulty or outdated entries. A very important source of data of the highest quality has been built out in the RIDOM Mycobacteria project, which offers an excellent platform for analyzing mycobacterial 16S sequences. Moreover, it contains reviewed data and descriptions on the phenotype of all mycobacteria."
Enrico Tortoli, Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 16: 319-54 (2003). Regional Reference Center for Mycobacteria, Florence, Italy [PubMed].

"The RIDOM site provides peer-reviewed entries, along with extensive phenotypic and sequence data, and is recommended."
Leslie Hall et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 41: 1447-53 (2003). Division of Clinical Microbiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota (USA) [PubMed].

"While the MicroSeq database consists mainly of a single type strain for each species and clearly lacks some important species, we found the RIDOM database to be very complete [...]. Caution should be exercised when using public databases which are not monitored, such as GenBank."
Joann Cloud et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 40: 400-6 (2002). ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology, Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) [PubMed].

"The RIDOM service for which there has long been a need will become an essential tool for all laboratories with sequencing capacities, not only in mycobacteriology but also, as their database expands, in all diagnostic bacteriology."
Christine Turenne et al., J. Clin. Microbiol., 39: 3637-48 (2001). National Reference Center for Mycobacteriology, Winnipeg, Canada [PubMed].