srahunter: A User-Friendly Tool for Efficient Retrieval and Management of SRA Data

Easy access and use of vast datasets are paramount for advancing scientific discovery in steadily expanding studies based on high-throughput sequencing (HTS). The Sequence Read Archive (SRA), now part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), is a public repository of reference for HTS reads and makes available an amazing sheer volume of information. Yet, researchers face significant challenges in efficiently accessing, downloading, and managing data and metadata. Here, we introduce srahunter , a tool designed to simplify data and metadata acquisition from SRA. Developed with Python and Bash, srahunter leverages the core functionalities of SRA Toolkit and Entrez Direct , to enable automated downloading, smart data management, and user-friendly metadata integration through an interactive HTML table. Compared with existing tools, srahunter increases the efficiency of metadata retrieval. srahunter supports HTS-based research by streamlined handling of SRA datasets, reducing the technical barriers to SRA data, srahunter can accelerate the development of genomics and multiple ‘omics research.