NCBI BLAST is like google for bioinformatics. It helps in quickly comparing any nucleotide or protein sequence with various databases stored at NCBI.
Customizing Search
Database option
# Often used databases
1. Human genome + transcriptome - relevant for blastn
2. Mouse genome + transcriptome - relevant for blastn
3. NR/NT - non-redundant set of nucleotides - relevant for blastn
4. Assembled genomes - relevant for blastn
5. NR - non-redundant set of proteins - relevant for blastp
Organism option
# You can include or exclude a class of organisms.
References
Nucleotide BLAST
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch
Protein BLAST
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PAGE=Proteins
BLASTX
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PROGRAM=blastx&PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch
TBLASTN
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PROGRAM=tblastn&PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch
Microbial BLAST
https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch&BLAST_SPEC=MicrobialGenomes