Many sequence representations when saved to file also contain information about that sequence. Unfortunately there is no standard around what that data may be from format to format. This property allows a place to put structured metadata that can be accessed by a particular key. For example, if species information is stored in a particular Species class, you could add it to the dictionary by: mySequence.Metadata["SpeciesInfo"] = mySpeciesInfo; To fetch the data you would use: Species mySpeciesInfo = mySequence.Metadata["SpeciesInfo"]; Particular formats may create their own data model class for information unique to their format as well. Such as: GenBankMetadata genBankData = new GenBankMetadata(); // ... add population code mySequence.MetaData["GenBank"] = genBankData;

public Dictionary<string, Object> Metadata { get; }

Public ReadOnly Property Metadata As Dictionary(Of String, Object)
	Get

public:
virtual property Dictionary<String^, Object^>^ Metadata {
	Dictionary<String^, Object^>^ get () sealed;
}

abstract Metadata : Dictionary<string, Object> with get
override Metadata : Dictionary<string, Object> with get