BLAST-P Results Part 2

Your goal is to determine if the alpha-amylase sequences you used in lab are similar to each other. The first step is to see whether they were identified in the BLAST search you just ran. Scroll back up slowly through the list of "hits". What species do you see? If it is not clear from the brief description, click on the accession number to get the GenPept descriptions. In fact, what you will probably find are sequences from plants, bacteria and a few insects. Click on the "Distance of Tree Results" button at the top of the list of hits to examine which organisms are represented in the list.

If human and oyster salivary alpha amylase are not found in this list of BLAST hits, how else might you find those sequences to compare to corn? Design and carry out a strategy to find them, and once you do, copy the FASTA formatted sequences to the same NotePad file your other sequence is in. Make sure there are blank lines between the sequences.

Accession Number Check

To facilitate a broader comparison of alpha-amylase among plant and animals, you should now have four accession numbers: one for corn (Zea mays), humans (Homo sapiens), Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) and barley (Hordeum vulgare). Check with the lab instructor to make sure that you have the appropriate sequences before you proceed