Introduction

Use this tab to view the currently visible region in the Ensembl or UCSC Genome Browsers.

View a region in an external genome browser

Depending on the genome, you can use External View tab to view the currently visible region in the UCSC or Ensembl genome browsers.

To view a region

• Click External View tab to open it
• Choose external browser from the menu
• Click Update

If you navigate to a new region, click the Update button.

Although the view is not interactive, you can get interesting details about a gene/region, including cross species comparisons, mapped ESTs, SNPs, and/or repeated sequence data, when available.

External View showing TP53 in IGB and the UCSC Genome Browser

Import UCSC genoe browser settings

If you have used a web browser to access the UCSC server and have changed the UCSC view through the browser, you can import those settings into IGB, permitting IGB to display the view in the same way as the web browser. Click the settings button (blue box in previous image) and follow the directions in the window.

Settings window

Advice on region sizes

While you can access information on very large regions (spanning 10-15 genes), a smaller region or specific gene may return more data due to more details being available. To use ENSEMBL you must have a fairly zoomed in picture (<100,000 bp) and it must be a species that ENSEMBL curates. The same is true for UCSC, although it can handle slightly larger regions of the chromosome. A smaller region or specific gene may return more data due to more details being available.