Make.sra "error": "sample A is a duplicate sample to B

[pad]

Hi all,

I’ve created the project and mimarks files for make.sra using mothur’s instructions. My samples are named with a {letterNumber} structure; e.g., A001, A002, … When I run make.sra, I get the following message: “A002 is a duplicate sample to A001. It has all the same attributes in the MIMarks file. Samples must have distinguishing features to be uploaded to the NCBI library, please correct.”

What am I doing wrong?

[westcott]

Could you post your log, project and mimarks files?

[pad]

Thank you. I sent the data to mothur.bugs.

[westcott]

Thanks for sending your files. The issue is caused by the mimarks file entries. NCBI requires samples to contain different information in the mimarks file. Looking at the samples in question:

ARM001	ArtPrize study samples	missing	MiSeq V4	human skin metagenome	2015	human-associated habitat	organic feature	organic material	United States of America: Michigan	Homo sapiens	42.9607 N 85.4955 W	forearm
ARM002	ArtPrize study samples	missing	MiSeq V4	human skin metagenome	2015	human-associated habitat	organic feature	organic material	United States of America: Michigan	Homo sapiens	42.9607 N 85.4955 W	forearm

The samples are identical in the mimarks file. You need to modify the mimarks file to distinguish between the samples.

[pad]

Thank you – yes, that was an oversight of my part.