Author Archives: Chris

How to change the circular origin of a sequence

While most MacVector analysis algorithms can handle circular sequences, its sometimes useful to be able to set the “12 o’clock” point to a different location on the circle. This is easy to do with recent MacVector releases. If you are using MacVector 13.5, then all you have to do is position the flashing caret between […]

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Test PCR Primer Pairs using the Primer Design (Primer3) Interface

Over the past few releases of MacVector, we have been adding a lot of functionality to the Quicktest Primer and Primer Design/Test Pairs interfaces and slowly removing the old outdated primer design functions. The general strategy is that anything you need to do with a single primer, you can accomplish using the Quicktest Primer interface. […]

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How to find and open all the sequences on your computer containing a specific gene.

How often have you had a vector or sequence open and thought “I’m sure I have other vectors with that gene, but I can’t remember where they are”? If you are using MacVector 13.5, its very easy to quickly search folders on your hard drive to find all the sequences that contain that gene, then […]

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How to identify methylation blocked Restriction Sites

MacVector currently does not have a built-in function for recognizing restriction sites that are blocked by the DAM or DCM methylases. However, there is a simple workaround that lets you visually identify those sites in the restriction enzyme analysis result windows. The basic idea is that you create additional restriction enzyme sites for each enzyme […]

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Downloading BLAST Hits from the NCBI

When you use MacVector to run a BLAST search, did you know that you can download any matching sequences directly from the BLAST Description List window? Simply select text on any part of the line(s) representing the sequence you want to download and choose Database | Retrieve To Desktop or Database | Retrieve To Disk […]

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Creating cloning construction flowcharts in third party applications

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 user to document their constructs in other ways. For example being […]

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Clearing the “find” history in the Primer and Find dialogs.

Many tools in MacVector store a history of sequences, or search terms, that you have previously used. For example the Find dialog and Primer Design tools. This is accessed using a drop down menu to the right of the box where you would normally type, or paste, your sequence. This is to allow easy access […]

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Simulated Agarose Gels

MacVector 14.5 has a Agarose Gel interface which allows you to view photo-realistic recreations of restriction digests of linear and circular DNA molecules. The gels look so realistic that users have had a hard time telling photos of their own digests from the simulation in MacVector. When you first use the new tool and compare […]

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MacVector 14.5 is out!

We are pleased to announce that MacVector 14.5 was released at the end of 2015. To upgrade to this version if you are running OS X 10.7 or later then just go to MACVECTOR > CHECK FOR UPDATES… to allow MacVector to automatically upgrade. If you are running OS X 10.6 then you will need […]

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Happy holidays from all of us at MacVector!

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