You are now ready to Blast Off! We have provide sequence data for transposable elements in the rice genome (MITEs and LINEs) that you can cut and paste into the search system below. This is a custom version of BLAST with a subset of data from the rice genome. Try pasting in partial sequences and the complete known TE. What would you expect to see? Compare your results.

Please make sure that your sequence is in FASTA format. If you are unsure of whether or not your sequence is in FASTA format, click here!

Copy and paste your query here!

Now What?

You have now begun to harness the power of bioinformatics. Scientists search genomes looking for clues, hints, and suggestions. Computer scientists create tools like BLAST so that bioinformatics researchers can explore the huge volumes of information that are being gathered by geneticists who sit in the laboratory extracting DNA and RNA and proteins of interest from living organisms. Ultimately, the information cycles among these specialties, and together the researchers decipher the meaning and power of the genome. Learning to search a genome is one important step in the process.