# Checking for available genomes in MetaPhlAn Database

**URL:** <https://forum.biobakery.org/t/checking-for-available-genomes-in-metaphlan-database/3730>\
**Category:** MetaPhlAn\
**Created:** [June 16, 2022, 6:38pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/checking-for-available-genomes-in-metaphlan-database/3730 "2022-06-16T18:38:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![aitor.blancomiguez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/aitor.blancomiguez/32/86_2.png) [@aitor.blancomiguez](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/aitor.blancomiguez)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2022, 10:08am UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/checking-for-available-genomes-in-metaphlan-database/3730/5 "2022-06-28T10:08:28Z")

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Hi @jennychika  
Unfortunately, there are no strains already uploaded as references in StrainPhlAn, any strain you want to add as reference genome in the tree should be manually added with the -r parameter. Please, have a look at this post: [Identifying Strain Names](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/identifying-strain-names/2493)  
For your last question, no, MetaPhlAn should be run on the reads (or on the a sam/bowtie2out file produced already by MetaPhlAn) and StrainPhlAn should always start from the sam files from MetaPhlAn.

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