# Can I use my own genomes only as db?

[Yangzhi Rao]

Hi all,

This is Rao Yangzhi, a postdoc at Prof. Hua Zhengshuang’s lab from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). I have gone through the manual and found that to add our genomes for host detection, it seems that those genomes need to be integrated into the complete iPhop database. Can I separately use my genomes for the database only to run host detection? Because I would love to focus on the connection between phages and bac/arc in our sample sites. Also, it could be more time-saving with such option.

Bests,

Rao

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[Simon Roux]

Hi Rao,

The short answer is no. The longer answer is: iPHoP relies on a large database as it needs a (very) large context of “non-host” to better identify potential hosts. That is why in order to consider user-specific genomes, we require these genomes to be added to the entire iPHoP database. That being said, when using a custom database, you can look in the “xxx_to_genome_mXX.csv” file to identify in which case (i.e. for which virus) one of your genome was used for host prediction.

Hope this helps !

Best,

Simon

[Yangzhi Rao]

Hi Simon,

Thank you very much for the concise and to-the-point answer! Clear my doubt immediately . Let me try and see if there are some further issues.

Bests,

Rao