Control DNA Consensus Flowgrams

3.8.2

Clicking the “Open the flowgram” button (in the Options area of the Control DNA tab), when one of the Control DNA sequences is selected, brings up the consensus flowgram for that sequence (Figure 40). A consensus flowgram is the flowgram constructed by averaging, for each nucleotide flow, the read flowgram signals of the reads identified as that reference sequence. This is presented as part of a tri-flowgram, along with the “ideal” flowgram for that Control DNA sequence and the “difference” flowgram, in a manner similar to the tri-flowgram of a Control DNA well, described before (Section 3.5.3).

3.8.2.1

•	The Options area provides the following choices:

◦	Consensus Region: choice of what PicoTiterPlate Device region data to display:

▪	All – Show the consensus flowgram formed by averaging all the read flowgrams across the entire PicoTiterPlate Device, for the Control DNA sequence specified.

▪	Individual region – Show the consensus flowgram of the reads from an individual region of the PicoTiterPlate Device, for the Control DNA sequence specified.

◦	Style: choice of Bars, Lines, or Lollipop plot styles. In all cases, the reagent flowed in each step is color-coded, per the legend. The lines and lollipop styles are narrower than the bar style, and will allow viewing of more of a Run without scrolling.

•	Navigation and data capture buttons:

◦	All the buttons in this window have common functions: setting and adjusting the zoom level of the plot display or allowing a user to save the data as a text file or snapshot image. See Section 3.3.4 for a description of the navigation and data capture button functions.

◦	The text file and snapshot image buttons will save a file containing the data or view for all three plots.

◦	The bottom plot contains separate zooming buttons because the scrolling and zooming of the plots are tied together except for the y-axis of the bottom plot (see below).

•	Plot display:

◦

The top plot displays the idealized flowgram for the Control DNA sequence selected, generated by taking the known nucleotide reference sequence and converting each homopolymer stretch into a corresponding signal (e.g. “AAA” becomes a signal of 3.0 in the next A flow). The middle plot displays the consensus flowgram calculated as a flow-by-flow average of all the reads matching this Control DNA sequence in the region(s) selected; and the bottom plot displays the flow-by-flow differences between the top two plots.

◦	The plot shares the common scrolling and zooming functions of the GS Run Browser plots. See Section 3.3.3 for a description of the plot functions.

◦

◦	Since the bottom plot zooms separately, it has its own zoom buttons.

◦	The horizontal bars between the plots allow for adjusting the heights of the three plots.

◦	When the mouse pointer is over the plot, the mouse tracker shows the flow number, the reagent flowed and the N-mers count for the flow under the pointer.

•	Signal legend: This area shows the colors used to display the flowgram signals on the plot; each reagent is shown in a different color.