Panels¶
Panels are the reusable reference resources your analyses depend on — gene panels, gene sets, BED interval files, panels-of-normals, and sequencing kits. You upload each one as a file; iFlow stores it permanently in the project and tracks a summary (gene or interval counts) alongside it.
You'll find Panels in the left sidebar. Everything here is scoped to your active project.
What a panel can be¶
| Kind | Typical file | What's summarised |
|---|---|---|
| Gene panel | newline / comma list of gene symbols | gene count + gene list |
| Gene set | gene symbol list | gene count + gene list |
| BED file | .bed intervals |
interval count, contigs, covered bases |
| Sequencing kit | .bed or Picard .interval_list |
interval count, contigs, covered bases |
| Panel of normals | VCF / HDF5 | container format, sample count (VCF) |
Files can be gzipped (.gz) — they're read transparently.
In this section¶
- Managing panels — upload, browse, download, and remove panels.
- Phenotype panel builder — build a gene panel from a patient's phenotype (HPO terms).
Using a panel in an analysis¶
When you run an analysis, any file input has a Choose panel button next to Browse. It opens the project's reference resources so you can pick a panel (for example a BED file for targeted calling, or a panel-of-normals). The panel is passed to the pipeline by reference — no copying required.
Good to know¶
- Panels live in permanent project storage and are exempt from retention cleanup, so they stay available for re-runs.
- Deleting a panel is a soft delete: it disappears from the catalog but the underlying file is kept, so analyses that referenced it remain reproducible.
- A panel name must be unique within the project.