Starting your own NG-MAST study?

The NG-MAST website provides the official assignment of the allele numbers for por and tbpB sequences and also provides the official assignment of ST numbers to each unique two-digit allelic profile (or  combination - see further information).

The site also provides a facility for individuals to have their own strain databases, but in the past these were not made public. It has become clear that users are often identifying the same STs in different countries and that the NG-MAST site would benefit from data sharing.  Almost all current users have now agreed to make their NG-MAST data public, which will provide users with a richer interrogation of the database and may help foster collaborations.

Along with public access to strain data, we have introduced some new features that allow searches through the entire public database, including one that allows the location of isolates from your search result to be viewed via a mapping function. We therefore strongly encourage users to enter their isolate data when assigning new STs so that these become available to other users.

However, it remains possible for a user to select any isolate’s record to be held privately, such that the isolate details, other than the alleles, ST and user name, cannot be viewed by others.  We would hope that the open access spirit prevails and that users only rarely keep isolate data private.

Please contact Dr Nicole Bilek for further details.