How do I search for a gene using an Entrez, Ensembl, or other accession ID?


Overview
You can use Quick Search to find genes by function, disease, phenotype, identifier or other types of data in MGI. Quick Search returns a list of genome features, terms, or other search results that match your entry.
Accessing Quick Search
You can access MGI Quick Search directly from the homepage, or at the upper right corner of most other MGI pages.

For this tutorial, open the MGI home page in a new window and locate Quick Search at the top center of the page to get started.

MGI Header
Example 1. Using a list of gene symbols or identifiers as well as batch queries
  1. MGI's Quick Search accepts most types of accession IDs, including gene IDs, protein IDs, and human orthologs as well as partial words and symbols using "*" as a wildcard following a prefix (i.e. Tnf* for all gene IDs beginning with Tnf). Hover over the question mark for more tips.

    For this example, type:
    • 15978 (Entrez ID for Ifng)
    • P04351 (UniProt ID for Il-2)
    • 147575 (OMIM ID for human IRF1)
    • ENSMUSG00000034855 (Ensembl ID for Cxcl10)

    Click [Quick Search].

  1. The Quick Search Results rank genome features, vocabulary terms, and other results by relevance.

  2. Click [Get More Data] for genome features 1 through 4 (see arrows) to retrieve associated data such as gene function, phenotype, allele or disease data. This button leads to the MGI Batch Query, a tool to retrieve data about many genes in MGI simultaneously.
Search Results
  1. On the Batch Summary page, locate the [Click to modify search] button at the upper left to see additional options. Select gene attributes to display, and select the radio button next to Human Disease (DO) to retrieve human diseases associated with mouse genes Cxcl10, Ifng, Il2, and Irf1.

  2. Click [Search] again.

    3. You can also retrieve ontology (functional) information, alleles or expression data for all of your genes using this window.

    Results can be exported as plain text or Excel files.

MGI Batch Query

Example 2. Search using phrases
  1. Type vitamin D binding into the text box and click [Search]. You can increase the specificity of searches by using quotation marks around a phrase (i.e. "vitamin D" binding) which will limit the results to items that match the enclosed phrase exactly.

  2. The Quick Search Results rank genome features, vocabulary terms, and other results containing vitamin D binding by relevance to this phrase, and to any individual word in this phrase.

  3. Hover over the "and 11 more..." button in the Best Match column to see a summary of gene-associated features that contain the phrase "vitamin D" and/or "bind(ing)" as a root word, including gene synonyms, orthologs, functions and protein domains.

    Click for more details.

vitd

Example 3. Expanding a search with wildcards
  1. Type thala* into the text box.

  2. Click Quick Search.
Search2
  1. The Quick Search Results identifies genes, alleles, expression and disease models containing the prefix "thala", including alpha- or beta-thalassemia (disease), thalassemic alleles, and genes with expression in the thalamus or thalamus mantle layer.

    At present, Quick Search only supports the wildcard character in (*) prefix searches and will not identify terms containing thala in the middle or at the end of a keyword such as hypothalamus or epithalamus. These and related terms can be found using hypothal* or epithal*.

Search Results

Example 4. Advanced searches using query forms
MGI query forms are the best option for answering very specific questions, especially those that combine queries across major data content areas such as function and expression, phenotype and genomic location, and so on. To view examples, click a FAQ link below.
How do I find expression data for a specific gene and tissue? FAQ
How do I find genes expressed in one tissue but not another? FAQ
How do I search for genes, QTL, or other features in a specific genome interval? FAQ
How do I find candidate genes for a given phenotype and a specific genome location? FAQ
How do I find mutations that cause a specific combination of phenotypes? FAQ

For additional examples, see Frequently Asked Questions.
Also see Using the Quick Search Tool for more information.