BLAST result battlecards
Recall the fields and caveats needed to interpret BLAST hits safely.
Top-hit trap The first hit description is the gene name, right? A top hit appears with a confident-looking product name. Your response Not automatically. First check query coverage, percent identity, E-value, and whether the source record is curated or predicted. Copying a description line before reading the alignment evidence. It keeps annotation tied to the evidence, not the label. Coverage vs identity Which is more convincing: 98 percent identity over 20 percent coverage, or 88 percent identity over 95 percent coverage? Coverage and identity must be read together. E-value What does a lower BLAST E-value generally indicate? Think expected chance…
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