Tripal BLAST Module Description

This module provides a basic interface to allow your users to utilize your server's NCBI BLAST+.

Setup | Functionality

Setup Instructions

  1. Install NCBI BLAST+ on your server (Tested with 2.2.26+). There is a package available for Ubuntu to ease installation. Optionally you can set the path to your BLAST executable in the settings.
  2. Optionally, create Tripal External Database References to allow you to link the records in your BLAST database to further information. To do this simply go to Tripal> Chado Modules > Databases > Add DB and make sure to fill in the Database prefix which will be concatenated with the record IDs in your BLAST database to determine the link-out to additional information. Note that a regular expression can be used when creating the BLAST database to indicate what the ID is.
  3. Create "Blast Database" nodes for each dataset you want to make available for your users to BLAST against. BLAST databases should first be created using the command-line makeblastdb program with the -parse_seqids flag.
  4. It's recommended that you also install the Tripal Job Daemon to manage BLAST jobs and ensure they are run soon after being submitted by the user. Without this additional module, administrators will have to execute the tripal jobs either manually or through use of cron jobs.

Highlighted Functionality

Protection Against Large Jobs

Depending on the size and nature of your target databases, you may wish to constrain use of this module.
  1. Limit the number of results displayed via admin page. The recommended number is 500.
  2. Limit the maximum upload file size in php settings. This is less useful because some very large queries may be manageable, and others not.
  3. Repeat-mask your targets, or provide repeat-masked versions. Note that some researchers may be looking for repeats, so this may limit the usefulness of the BLAST service.