Learn how to perform sequence similarity searches using BLAST
BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) is one of the most widely used bioinformatics tools for sequence similarity searching. This tutorial will guide you through the process of using BLAST to find similar sequences in databases.
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of molecular biology and sequence analysis concepts.
To start using BLAST, visit the NCBI BLAST website at https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
Your query sequence should be in FASTA format. Here's an example:
>Query_sequence
ATGCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCGATCG
Make sure your sequence is properly formatted and free of any special characters or spaces.
BLAST offers several parameters that you can adjust to optimize your search:
BLAST results include several important components:
Visual representation of sequence alignments
List of significant matches with scores and E-values
Detailed pairwise alignments of query and subject sequences
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