Changing the sequence alignment match and mismatch characters

Many MacVector analysis functions (e.g. Align To Folder, Create Dotplot and Internet Blast Search) display alignments where there is (by default) a vertical “|” character indicating a match between the query and database sequences. While this is very useful for identifying matching residues, sometimes you might be more interested in those residues that do NOT match. You can easily change the characters used from the MacVector > Preferences > Aligned Sequence tab;

In this example, I’ve changed the match character (“+1 or greater”) to a and the mismatch character (“-1 or less”) to a hash (“#”) symbol. When you click Apply, any open text alignment windows will update to display the new characters;

There are more details on this functionality in our 101 Tips series.