从新冠病毒起源到BLAST工具的正确实践

基本局部比对搜索工具(basic local alignment search tool,BLAST)是核酸或蛋白质序列相似性分析最常用的工具之一.因为程序涉及参数较多,一些学生和研究者有时不根据实际情况也不阅读说明书就直接选择默认参数,可能会得出错误结论.BLAST可以进行核酸、蛋白质序列及其相互间的比对,一些低年级...

From the Origins of SARS-CoV-2 to the Correct Application of BLAST

Basic local alignment search tool(BLAST)is one of the popular sequence similarity analysis tools. However, some students and researchers just blindly use the default parameters. Moreover, some students are confused about how to choose the right program. In a word, it is prone to be misused and researchers often draw conclusions incorrectly. In view of this, we traced back the internet hot topic in early 2020 – “MORDERATELY STRONG CONFIRMATION OF A LABORATORY ORIGIN OF COVID-19”, and took it as teaching materials to guide the student to use BLAST currently through reanalyzing and reproducing the source of errors. Then we arranged an interesting experiment about fabricating dinosaur genes through modifying a chicken gene. In the experimental design to make the students grasp the BLAST tools better, one group fabricated the dinosaur gene and the other group decrypted the added bases. This instructional design could be conducive to cultivate students’ ability about distinguishing different viewpoints correctly, and we hope it can be enlightening and helpful to the teaching of BLAST tools.