Contents of this Article
Adding Canonical Features
To create a new Feature on the Sequence View, click on the “Edit” option on the upper menu, and select “Create”, then “New Feature”.
This can be done after manually selecting the fragment included in the Feature, or you can indicate its position on the window shown. On the menu, you will display a set of available features. The same Feature can be used in different sequence segments (as a non-continuous annotation) by clicking “Add Joined Feature Span”.
When filling in the required information, notice that you must indicate the Feature Type, a way to categorize the feature you are creating. If none of the available feature types fits your needs, you can create a new type. To do that, go to User Settings and locate the option “Feature Types” on the left panel.
There, you can see the complete list of feature types. Click on the “new” icon to add a new one and fill in the required information. After that, you’ll have to refresh any pages you are using to see that new feature type reflected.
After creating a feature, it will be shown on both the left and right sides of the screen on the Sequence view.
However, you can automate features to be automatically found and added to a DNA piece, this process is called auto-annotation of your sequence. To do that, you need to create a new feature by clicking on the option “Sequence Features” on the “Molecules” option of the upper menu.
You can add them by clicking on the “Upload” icon, and “Tags on Sequence Features”. Features are created by uploading a .csv file or building a table directly on the platform (click on “Build CSV File”).
Notice that, when building a new CSV file, the platform gives you directions on what information should be added and the correct format.
However, if you prefer to upload a .csv file, you can download the available file templates by placing the cursor over the format names and clicking on “Download Example File”.
Adding Non-Canonical Features
The difference between a canonical and a non-canonical feature is that the last cannot be used for auto-annotations. Canonical features are available to make the annotation process easy and automated. To create a canonical feature, go to User settings and select “Features” on the left side panel.
Once you're there, click on “Register Features” and fill in the required information on the window shown.
You can also select other ways to add your features on the upper part of the window:
Registering Existing: You can select directly from an already existing annotation or feature. This window will display the list of them and you can select one or more to be added as features.
Import: Allows you to upload a .csv, ApE, or Genbank file. Remember that you can always download the template files to follow the proper format before importing your information.
Creating Feature Groups
As you could’ve noticed in the previous sections, Features can be organized by grouping them. To set up a group, go again to the User Settings page and select "Features" on the side panel; this time, select “Feature groups” on the upper part.
Click on the “new” icon and fill in the required information to create a new group.
Once your new group is successfully created, you will be able to see it on the list of available groups when creating or importing new features.
Creating Parts from Features
The ability to create parts from features of DNA sequences allows users to reuse existing sequences and features to create DNA parts that can be used in designing new DNA constructs. Creating parts from features in your sequences can be accomplished from the Sequences library or in the vector editor. Let’s take a look at the two options.
From the DNA Sequences library: Select the sequence that contains the feature(s) that you want to create parts from and right-click on it. On the displayed menu, select “Create Parts from Features”.
This will open a window with a list of all the features present in that sequence, you can choose one or more that you would like to use to create parts.
After hitting the “Create Parts” button the newly created parts will show up for the corresponding sequence in the Parts column.
Double-click the sequence and you will see the new parts in the Plasmid and Sequence Map in the vector editor. Place the cursor over a part to see more details about it.
From the Vector Editor: Double-click on the sequence that has the features you want to create parts from to open it in the vector editor. Select the feature, right-click to open the context menu, and select the “Make a Part from Feature” option.
This will automatically create a part that will be displayed in the Plasmid and the Sequence Map as well.
