Data Analysis Support - part 5
Performing Database Searches...
After you have ascertained that the sequence is of good quality, you can then perform Blast searches or do whatever other analysis / manipulation of the sequence that you need to do. This cannot be stressed enough. Performing Blast searches, etc should be the final part of the analysis, not the first! We get people contacting us all the time because all they have done is a Blast search and they get a "hit" against something that is not their sequence. They immediately think we have done something wrong... By spending a small amount of time perforning a thorough analysis of the results, it is possible to determine what the quality of the results is so that (should the need arise) you have all the information available when contacting us about your results.
One Final Point...
We do not expect our customers to be experts in interpretation of chromaograms data and trouble-shooting failed/poor results. That is part of our job (either proactively or at customer request). We are more than happy to help whenever we can and will always do our level best to help customers to obtain the best results that they can. However, we would like our customers to be able to make best use of all the information available to them so that they can undertake a full analysis of their data and use the results of that analysis to satisfy themselves that the data is accurate or to assist them with trying (with our help if necessary) to identify why the data may not be accurate.