Enter a Sequence

This BioCompanion copy is a demo version . This section describes the methods available to enter a sequence into the computer by manual typing. The automatic import of existing data files has been described in the reformatting chapter . The use of programs in the GCG package as described in this section requires that the setup of the GCG software has been completed. Within Seqlab, sequence editing bacame rather easy. If you insist on character-based editing, use the seqed program as supported in previois versions of GCG. If you have the sequence in electronic form already but did not use it in GCG before, refer to the previous chapters for details.


Considerations

The Place Of Birth Changed

Before the genomic sequencing age, sequences had always to be typed in. Today, the automatic sequencing has frequently obsoleted the manual procedures. Once you obtained the four nucleotides as chromatogram, a totally different informatics aspect applies (also referred to as Lab automation software). Besides the software which is typically supplied with the sequenator machine, various PC- and Mac based programs as well as UNIX-based software have been established. Today's pressure on economic sequencing has raised the necessity to obtain as long reads as possible. Therefore, the basecalling and the assignment of sequence reads from the traces has become a major element in processing. Assuming that the traces are available in binary format, there are several packages you might be interested in using:

It is well understood that you do no longer obtain your desired sequence in a single run, but frequently need to assemble the obtained sequence fragments from several fragments into so-called contigs . GCG's approach to the fragment assembly is described below. The following section focuses on the creation of new sequences . If you have already created a contig with any of the software packages above, refer to the section on sequence import for details how to proceed. This chapter also contains a section on SeqLab's way to handle sequences.

Use of programs other than the GCG package

In order to type in sequences , you might want to use a different program to type in sequences, such as text editors or PC-based software. GCG's 'SeqLab' program runs on the Bioinformatics compute resource computer and, therefore, is only one of your options. If you choose a different environment, make sure that the sequences are either following GCG format conventions or may be reformatted to this format easily. PC users might also want to ensure that the infrastructure to transfer or share files is well established. Refer to the hints on public domain software for considerations on the implementation of non-standard software.

Entering Data Is Serious

Keep in mind to enter data in a fashion that allows others (and yourself) to identify the sequence and its features. It is essential to keep in mind that a sequence entered by yourself has all major features added properly, such as a database entry :

The annotation of such a sequence is quite important and should not be underestimated.

The annotation of newly generated sequences for submission to the databases is best achieved by using the WWW driven input tools as available on the WWW servers from EBI, DDBJ and NCBI.

Related Programs

The users of automatic sequencing machines has already been mentioned above. You will most probably want to use software delivered with the machine in order to convert the traces of base pairs into DNA sequences. Alternatives have been mentioned above as well.

The last section of this chapter describes the Fragment Assembly System (FAS) used to assemble sequence fragments which have been entered before into larger contigs .

The Seqlab software has a different way to handle, and edit, sequences and is described below .


JAMF source file: enter.jam
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