In order to complete this practical your computer must be connected to the internet, as the software retrieve sequence data from the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge, UK.

Access the Favourites menu and select Database Sequence Retrieval. Go to the Input Sequence Options and select "embl" from the Databases available menu and hit OK.

This will automatically insert the database name into the Sequence Filename box and will follow it with a colon. This is the start of the of database entry address used by EMBOSS. In order to complete the address, the identifier or accession number of the entry must be typed into the box.

Type AF031237 into the Sequence Filename field after the colon. Hit the LOAD SEQUENCE ATTRIBUTES button and then launch the program by clicking the GO button.

There are currently a selection of databases available from your Biobind software. These include the nucleotide databases EMBL, Genbank and Refseq and the protein databases Uniprot, Swissprot and PIR.

Should you encounter an error message that states that the sequence could not be found, check you have not mistyped the entry. If this error persists, it is possible that the proxies you typed on installation of your software were incorrect.

The results window will automatically pop up on screen to display your sequence.

This embl sequence is in the default output file format fasta. The sequence description is also taken from the embl database.

The results appear automatically because the program as been set to "interacive" mode. This means that Jemboss will halt all operations until the analysis (or in this case the sequence retrieval) has been completed.

Access the File menu and Save to local file. The save options box will offer you the Demo folder (or whatever you have chosen as your top directory) by default.

Enter the name CCR5_gene.fasta into the "File Name:" field and hit the Save button.

The new file will automatically appear in the local file manager in the directory you saved it in. The window where the sequence appeared as a result does not close automatically.

Shut down the results window by selecting the File menu and the Close option.

Alternatively windows may be closed by using the shortcut keys ctl E (hold both the control key and the letter E down at the same time) or by clicking on the black cross on the top right of the results window.

Open up the new sequence file by double clicking on it in the file manager. Delete the sequence description by highlighting everything on the line after the greater than (>) sign and hitting ctl C (hold down both the control and C keys at the same time). Replacing it by typing EMBL:AF031237 CCR5 Gene complete CDS (H.sapiens) into that space.

Access the File menu once again and select the Save to local file option. Select the CCR5_gene.fasta file by clicking on it once. It will appear in the "File Name:" field. Hit the Save button. Click Yes on the warning message about overwriting files. The new contents of your file are now in the file manager.

Edits can only be made after a file has been saved. Just as with any other software package, a file with the same name as one already stored will overwrite it.

Return to the database retrieval program and check the Use Feature information box. The CCR5 gene entry address should still be in the sequence input field so leave it there. If the Reset button has been pressed by mistake, retype the entry, including the database information.

Open the Output Sequence Options and select "embl" from the Sequence format options and run the program. Access the results.

The results of this search include the same sequence as before, but this time it is in embl and not fasta format. Also the features that were requested from the EMBL entry are also displayed in the file.

Save this file as CCR5_gene.embl.

The new file will also appear in the file manager.