You can easily import primer sequences from spreadsheets or delimited text documents. At a minimum the tabular data should have two columns, the first column for the primer name, the second for the primer sequence (5'-3').
Importing Primers from a delimited text document
If you have a collection of primers in an Excel spreadsheet then you can save the file in either tab-delimited (.tsv) or comma-delimited (.csv) format. Then either import via Geneious menu File → From File..., or simply drag the delimited file into the Geneious window. Geneious will identify that you are importing tabular data and ask you to confirm the import format. Once you have confirmed the format the Import Sequences window will open.
Importing Primers by copy and paste
If you have primers in an Excel spreadsheet or a delimited text file then can simply Copy (CTRL-c or command-c) the column data from the spreadsheet, go to Geneious and go Paste (CTRL-v or command-v). Geneious will detect that you are importing tabular delimited data and ask you to confirm the import format. Once you have confirmed the format the Import Sequences window will open.
Exercise: Importing by copy & paste
In this exercise we will import primers as tab delimited data (.tsv). In the Geneious Document table, select the file Primers as delimited text, then select and copy the three lines of 3-column tab-delimited text from the viewer pane:
Then click on an empty row in the document table to deselect the text file and go Paste (CTRL-v or command-v).
The Specify File type dialog will then open, choose the top TSV option and click OK.
The Import Sequences dialog window will then open. This dialog allows you to specify the import data format and map the table columns to the appropriate file metadata fields.
Make sure the Import Type is set to Primer, check the option to Determine characteristics (this will add Tm's values to the primer_bind annotation). As the first row of the copied data are headers, make sure the option Top row values are column headings is checked. Finally, make sure the Name, Sequence and Description columns are mapped to the appropriate metadata fields.
Click OK and two new primer files will be created in this tutorial folder.
Use the link below to jump to Exercise 4.
Exercise 1: A Primer primer
Exercise 2: Manual entry of primers
Exercise 3: Importing tables of primers
Exercise 4: Manual design of primers
Exercise 5: Design of PCR primer pairs
Exercise 6: Testing primers against a target
Exercise 7: Degenerate primer design
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