Merging tracks
Two tracks can be merged using the Merge Annotation Tracks tool:
Toolbox | Track Tools (
) | Merge Annotation Tracks
Select the two or more tracks to be merged. They have to be of the same type, e.g. either gene tracks or variant tracks, and be based on the same genome.
Click Next and Finish to merge the tracks.
If the same annotation is found in both tracks, it is merged into one. This is performed differently for variant and other annotation tracks:
- Annotation tracks
- If the two annotations share the same region (i.e. same coordinates), they are merged. Information from both annotations are retained in the output. They are merged even if their name is different. This is useful when merging gene tracks from different sources using different naming conventions.
- Variant tracks
- Two variants are the same if they share the same alleles. In this case, they are merged, and the counts and frequencies in the new track will reflect the joint information from both tracks. This can be useful when merging tracks based on different protocols (e.g. different sequencing platforms) but for the same sample. Please note that this tool is not well-suited for comparing tracks (see Comparing variants instead).