Searching the database
The 'Search database' page allows you to search by combinations of criteria. These can be linked together by 'and' or 'or'. On some databases, you can also choose to search by clonal complex - click the 'Search by clonal complex' check box and select the required complex in the drop-down list. If you leave all the other fields blank, all STs belonging to the chosen complex will be returned, otherwise the search will be narrowed to those STs that match the complex and the other criteria.
You can query each field using the following modifiers:
| Modifier | Description |
|---|---|
| = | Case insensitive exact match |
| contains | Case insensitive match to a partial string, e.g. searching for clonal complex 'contains' st-11 would return all STs belonging to the ST-11 complex |
| > | Greater than |
| < | Less than |
| NOT | Match to values that do not equal the search term (case insensitive) |
| NOT contain | Match to values that do not contain the search term (case insensitive), e.g. searching for clonal complex 'NOT contain' lactamica would return all STs that do not belong to a clonal complex that has 'lactamica' in the name. |
To display all the STs in the database, you can choose to search for something that would be true for everything, e.g. 'id>0'.
Provided you have switched on tree drawing by going to the options page, if there are between 3 and 150 returned profiles, you can view a UPGMA tree by clicking the 'Tree' button.
A detailed breakdown of the dataset can be displayed. This shows the number of STs belonging to each clonal complex and the allele frequencies. If the database software is running on a server with ChartDirector installed, graphical charts will be displayed, otherwise a table will be used.
