Prodigal (Prokaryotic Dynamic Programming Genefinding Algorithm) is a microbial (bacterial and archaeal) gene finding program developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee. Key features of Prodigal include:
Speed: Prodigal is an extremely fast gene recognition tool (written in very vanilla C). It can analyze an entire microbial genome in 30 seconds or less.
Accuracy: Prodigal is a highly accurate gene finder. It correctly locates the 3' end of every gene in the experimentally verified Ecogene data set (except those containing introns). It possesses a very sophisticated ribosomal binding site scoring system that enables it to locate the translation initiation site with great accuracy (96% of the 5' ends in the Ecogene data set are located correctly).
Specificity: Prodigal's false positive rate compares favorably with other gene identification programs, and usually falls under 5%.
GC-Content Indifferent: Prodigal performs well even in high GC genomes, with over a 90% perfect match (5'+3') to the Pseudomonas aeruginosa curated annotations.
Metagenomic Version: Prodigal can run in metagenomic mode and analyze sequences even when the organism is unknown.
Ease of Use: Prodigal can be run in one step on a single genomic sequence or on a draft genome containing many sequences. It does not need to be supplied with any knowledge of the organism, as it learns all the properties it needs to on its own.
Open Source: Prodigal source code is freely available under the General Public License.
