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Print Agarose Gel images with black bands on a white background
Read more: Print Agarose Gel images with black bands on a white backgroundThe 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…
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Creating cloning construction flowcharts in third party applications
Read more: Creating cloning construction flowcharts in third party applicationsWe’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…
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You can automatically use the Free version of MacVector if your serial number is in use
Read more: You can automatically use the Free version of MacVector if your serial number is in useStarting with MacVector 14.5.1, if your serial number is in use, or if all the KeyServer licenses are in use, you will get a message like this when you start MacVector. If you click on the Continue using Free version button, you still have a surprising amount of functionality. You can open, print and save…
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Clearing the history in the Primer and Find dialogs
Read more: Clearing the history in the Primer and Find dialogsMany 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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Controlling the realism of Agarose Gels
Read more: Controlling the realism of Agarose GelsThe default settings for the agarose gel display in MacVector generate a reasonable photorealistic simulation of an agarose gel. We have actually boosted the intensity of small bands quite significantly, and reduced their diffusion so that smaller bands show up a little more obviously and crisply than they might in real life. Even so, you…
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A few tips on working with digested fragments in the Cloning Clipboard
Read more: A few tips on working with digested fragments in the Cloning ClipboardThe Cloning Clipboard is an easy, and flexible, way to design and document your cloning strategies. Here’s two tips on manipulating a single fragment. If you drag a fragment from the Cloning Clipboard to a vector, then you’ll get the ligate dialog. However, if you have already selected a pair of enzyme sites, then the…
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Changing the sequence alignment match and mismatch characters
Read more: Changing the sequence alignment match and mismatch charactersMany 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…
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Visualizing ORF analysis results in the MAP tab
Read more: Visualizing ORF analysis results in the MAP tabThe Map tab is a powerful way to visualize and interact with your sequences. You can design primers, ligate and digest fragments from the Cloning Clipboard, visualise translated CDS regions and much more. The Map tab of a Results window is just as flexible as the Map tab of the main sequence window. You can…
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Use File -> New From Clipboard to create new sequence documents
Read more: Use File -> New From Clipboard to create new sequence documentsWhenever you have information copied to the clipboard, you can choose File | New From Clipboard and MacVector will interpret any data on the clipboard and create a new document of the appropriate type. While this is most commonly used for DNA and Protein sequence documents, this also works for multiple sequence alignments and data…
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Designing and documenting cloning strategies
Read more: Designing and documenting cloning strategiesDesigning cloning strategies is easy with the Cloning Clipboard. You can perform quite complex ligations by simply dragging compatible ends together. However, when you open this construct a year later, you don’t want to have to look back in your lab book to know how you generated it. Neither do you need to! MacVector fully…
