David Upload Background Problem

Question

[jeansimon32]

Hi all,

I am trying to upload a list of gene symbol to DAVID as background but I got this message "Due to the ambiguous nature of Gene Symbol, DAVID does not allow it to be used for a background."

However, if i load the same gene list without specifying background there is no error message...

I also tried to convertor of DAVID but still doesn't work

I just wonder what is the problem?
Thanks Jean

[Ying W]

if you know which gene symbol you are having issues with, go to HUGO type it in and get the 'official' symbol and then use that for DAVID

Answer 1

[Hayssam]

Hi,

There's a limitation in DAVID with regards to custom background and gene symbol. I think it has to do with the impossibility to distinguish species based on gene symbol alone.

For the backgrounds, you have to provide e.g. ENSEMBL gene ID, ENTREZ gene ID or probe ID; depending on how your background was defined.

In any cases, you can use ensembl BioMart to perform the conversion from gene symbol to ensembl ID. If you are working on human genes, here's a biomart example.