The basic structure of BLAST web forms are very similar. As examples, we will describe the different fields found in blast.html and blast_cs.html pages below.
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| Figure 3. The blast_cs.html page. | |
In the top section (left panel), users can change the program and target database by clicking the down arrows and select from the pull-down list. 'A' marks the option not available in the non-cs counterpart, where users can select the 'Accession or GI' from the pull-down list to use NCBI gi or accession as input query in lieu of the actual FASTA sequence.
In the bottom section (right panel), users can adjust filter, Expect value, and other search settings to customize their BLAST searches. In addition, users can also select the display format of the search results. 'B' and 'C' mark the options not available to the non-cs counterpart: 'B' allows users to restrict a BLAST search to a subset of the NCBI database specified by valid Entrez query terms, and 'C' enables the display of BLAST result in Taxonomy Report format, which provides information on the distribution of BLAST hits among different taxa.