Hi,
I am having little problem interpreting the repeatmasking file which I have 
downloaded from the UCSC genome website. The "rmsk.txt.gz" file which I have 
downloaded from the this link 
<http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/database/rmsk.txt.gz> contains 
repeat information in Human genome. One of its field contains information about 
the "strand" and it says either positive or negative. My question is lets say 
for example one of the repeat name was L1MA3, which is a member of the LINE 
family and is located in Chromosome 1, position: 105002847 105010329 on the 
Negative strand. So the question is, because only the positive strand 
chromosome sequence is available does this position indicate 5' to 3' direction 
on positive strand of chromosome 1 OR do I need to generate the negative strand 
by complementing the positive strand and then calculate backward to that 
position?

Just to simplify what I mean: lets say the positive strand 5' to 3' sequence is 
ACCTTGGCTG, now in this sample sequence lets assume the position start from 1 
and length is 10 so the last position is 10. If a repeat is located from 
position 1 to 3 on the positive strand then the repeat sequence is "ACC". But 
if the repeat sequence is position 1 to 3 on the negative strand does it mean 
the complement of last 3 letter CTG that is GAC but as it is on the negative 
strand its in the reverse direction so the sequence I am after should be CAG???

I know I might confuse you, but given that I have asked few people and 
apparently nobody seems to be expert with the UCSC repeatmasking annotation 
procedure.

So it would be really appreciating if you take time to answer my query.

Thanks a lot for your time and cooperation.

Firoz

----------------------------------
Firoz Anwar
Complex System in Biology Group
Centre for Vascular Research(CVR)
Lowy Cancer Research Centre
University of New South Wales
Australia

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