An interactive mutation cliff table organizes all pairs of sequences that differ at only a single alignment position into a table that can be used to easily summarize data about specific mutations. Pairs of sequences are placed such that on the row is the monomer being changed and in the column is the alignment position of that change. Each cell contains a number depicting how many sequence pairs exist for each monomer-position. This is exemplified in the mutation cliff table below where at position 7 there are 9 pairs of sequences that are identical except that ‘A’ has been mutated to another monomer (A->?), 10 where ‘F’ has been mutated to another monomer and so forth down alignment position 7 or column 7. Selecting any one cell will display an inset table (right) that displays the details for each pair: the monomer mutations, the sequence ids of the pair, and the affect of that change on the data. The fundamental question being answered is given a monomer ‘A’, what has it been changed to and what affect on the data did this change have. All possible confounding co-mutations are removed in this analysis.

At the bottom of the table is a drop down control to select a data column (activity) from the data-set to display. Because each cell contains multiple sequence pairs, an aggregation method (min or max) must be selected. Finally, to color code the table based on activity change, a ratio of 10 is used by default. Those cells that have a ratio for a sequence pair will color blue if the change is 0.1 or less, red if 10 or greater, or gray if it is in between. All of the range parameters can be adjusted with the control at the bottom of the page.

While the inset table is very useful, it drills down to analyze only a single activity column at a time. Often it is beneficial to analyze multiple data columns simultaneously. To do this type of analysis, open a second panel (main menu->view->show both panels) and add or move a sequence table into this panel. In the subset panel (lower left), check the mutation cliff so that the subset contains only what is selected in the mutation cliff. Now all views that can be filtered by or marked by a subset can be modified by the mutation cliff. Select the Subset 1 in the Filter by drop down in the sequence table control (top right) to begin analysis. As cells in the mutation cliff are selected or as rows in the mutation cliff inset table are selected, the sequence table will display all relevant details for the selected sequences to complete the analysis.