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Strain meta data importable formats

Martin Zackrisson edited this page Jul 20, 2015 · 3 revisions

The basic principles always expected:

  • Excel and OpenOffice-type files can be used.
  • There may be exactly one header line.
  • Each line in the input file is expected to:
  • Contain information about one colony.
  • Contain all the information about that colony.
  • Each line may have however many columns wanted.
  • The information needed for the plates to come in order.
  • Each sheet in the input file contain an entire plate or a fourth of that plate.

In case of information going into a plate being split up between sheets or files (which may be of different types [OpenOffice and Excel]). See Interleaving of input below for more information.

Example sheet

This example, the sheet contains three columns Gene, ORF, Comment which are written out as a header row. The bulk middle part of the sheet information elipsised. Note that line numbering is not a column and that due to the header row, the first column is on line two. This is all OK and dealt with automatically. That the third column only contains information on some rows is also not a problem.

1	Gene	ORF	Comment
2	FLR1	YBR008C
3	FLR1	YBR008C
4	HIS3	YOR202W
5	HIS3	YOR202W

...

1533	REF	---
1534	UGA2	YBR006W	petite
1535	REF	---
1536	ECM15	YBL001C
1537	REF	---

Interleaving of input.

If it is more practical a plate's information can be split up over four sheets and/or files.

Minimal example

Sheet 1:

1	Strain
2	A1
3	A2
4	A3
5	A4
6	A5
...

Sheet 2:

1	Strain
2	B1
3	B2
4	B3
5	B4
6	B5
...

Sheet 3:

1	Strain
2	C1
3	C2
4	C3
5	C4
6	C5
...

Sheet 4:

1	Strain
2	D1
3	D2
4	D3
5	D4
6	D5
...

Would equal having a single sheet for a 1536 plate looking as follows:

Sheet Combined:

1	Strain
2	A1
3	B1
4	A2
5	B2
7	A3
8	B3
9	A4
10	B4
11	A5
10	B5
...
49	C1
50	D1
51	C2
52	D2
53	C3
54	D3
55	C4
56	D4
57	C5
58	D5
...

That is, the sheets 1 & 2 will take every other position on every second row, starting with the first row. sheets 3 & 4 will take every other position on every second row, starting with the second row.

Structuring information to match the suggested default/custom pinning program

  1. Make a sheet of 384 colonies as they would have looked on the source plate.
  2. Take two copies of this sheet so that you have three identical sheets after one and other
  3. Make a new empty sheet
  4. Copy the header-row (if any) from one of the other sheets
  5. Make a row of information for the reference position
  • To have things neat afterwards, make sure it's readily identifiable as having been a reference position
  • It is good practice to fill in the actual strain information about what was used in the reference positions
  1. Copy the reference row so that you have 384 identical reference row (if you have a header, last line should be on row 385).