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Mistaken Identifiers: Gene name errors can be introduced inadvertently
when using Excel in bioinformatics
Barry R Zeeberg, Joseph Riss, David W Kane, Kimberly J Bussey, Edward Uchio,
W Marston Linehan, J Carl Barrett and John N Weinstein
BMC Bioinformatics 2004, 5:80
Supplementary Material
SymbolMutationScan: scan your text files for gene names that were converted by Excel
(for UNIX, including Mac OS X terminal UNIX command prompt)
usage: chmod +x SymbolMutationScan.sh
./SymbolMutationScan.sh filename
Examples of Excel SymbolMutation for a Gene Name in a Major Public Database
We can compare screen shots taken on November 12, 2002 (left column) and
the current database (right column) to validate that the inappropriately converted
gene names in the screen shots have been corrected
Example of how symbol mutation can be introduced into the data processing stream
We can compare screen shots taken on November 14, 2003 of a web site hosting mouse genomic data without
exhibiting the problem, and a site hosting human-mouse homology data which does exhibit the symbol mutation.
Workarounds for the Excel SymbolMutation Conversion
Microsoft's Suggested Workarounds:
Our Suggested Workarounds:
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