We often get asked “how do I do an alignment” using MacVector? Well, the answer to that is always “it depends”, and it depends on what you want to learn about your sequence(s). Here’s a quick summary of the different types of alignments and what you would use them for: Multiple Sequence Alignment (File | […]
Many Genome Browsers/databases allow you to browse and view genomes, or a specific gene/region, with a high degree of detail. For example ENSEMBL and the UCSC Genome Browser. However, many times you want to work with that data on your own Mac. As usual the easiest way to exchange sequence data is using the Genbank […]
Being able to Drag Zoom makes it easy to view a specific region of your sequence in greater detail. To Drag Zoom, just hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor along your sequence. The Map view will redraw to show the selected area in greater detail. Once you are zoomed in you have […]
QuickTest Primer is a great tool for primer design. Paired with Primer Design/Test (Pairs) it gives you great control and flexibility for designing primers with tails, mismatches, silent mutations, one out sites and more. Once you’ve designed your primer the next step is to get it synthesized. QuickTest Primer will produce a PDF report of […]
The Map tab is very flexible and allows you to do almost all of the sequence manipulations you might need, without switching tabs. In addition to selecting segments of a sequence by clicking on Restriction Enzyme sites or Features, you can also directly select sequence even when the residues are not visible and represented by […]
The MacVector team will be in Boston next week (16-20 June) for ASM Microbe 2016. We’re looking forward to visiting Boston again. It’s a great city. We’re on booth 441. Please do drop by and say hello. We’ll be able to show you the upcoming release of MacVector 15 and MacVector for Windows. There’ll probably […]
Quite a few versions back MacVector used to have an old, but well loved, Test PCR Primer Pairs algorithm. Its interface was clunky and it did not take into account modern algorithms for calculating Tm. However, the results were useful. If you liked this tool then you will be pleased to know that the functionality […]
MacVector has multiple tools for displaying restriction enzymes sites in your sequence. All of these tools use Restriction Enzyme files. These are a set of files, updated regularly from the REBASE database, grouped according to reagent supplier. Whereas the default file is “Common Enzymes” if you only purchase enzymes from NEB, then you can choose […]
The new simulated agarose gel function in MacVector 14.5 creates photorealistic agarose gels that look just like the real thing. However, if you want to print a record of a gel on a laser printer, the standard white bands on a grey background are not always ideal, if for no other reason than it uses […]
We’ve previously discussed how every ligation is documented. You get a Frag annotation that contains the date, source sequence, enzymes used and any end modification that was done to that fragment during the ligation. However, we had regular requests to make it easier for users to document their constructs in other ways. For example, being […]