Key Features of BLAST:
1. Sequence Comparison: BLAST searches for local alignments between the query sequence and sequences in a database. It identifies regions of similarity, which can help infer functional and evolutionary relationships.

2. Speed and Efficiency: BLAST uses heuristic algorithms, making it faster than exhaustive search methods, suitable for large-scale database searches.

3. Versatility: There are several versions of BLAST for different types of sequence comparisons:
- blastn: Compares a nucleotide query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database.
- blastp: Compares a protein query sequence against a protein sequence database.
- blastx: Compares a nucleotide query sequence translated in all reading frames against a protein sequence database.
- tblastn: Compares a protein query sequence against a nucleotide sequence database translated in all reading frames.
- tblastx: Compares the six-frame translations of a nucleotide query sequence against the six-frame translations of a nucleotide sequence database.

4. Scoring and E-value: BLAST results are scored based on the quality and length of the alignments. The E-value (expect value) indicates the number of alignments one can expect to find by chance, with lower E-values representing more significant matches.

5. Output Formats: BLAST provides results in various formats, including plain text, HTML, XML, and JSON, making it adaptable for different types of analyses and integrations with other tools.

Applications of BLAST:
- Genomic Research: Identifying genes, understanding genetic diversity, and mapping genome sequences.
- Protein Function Prediction: Inferring the function of unknown proteins by comparing them to known protein sequences.
- Evolutionary Studies: Exploring evolutionary relationships between organisms by comparing their genetic material.
- Medical Research: Identifying pathogens, understanding disease mechanisms, and developing treatments by comparing sequences of interest.

Overall, BLAST is an essential tool in bioinformatics, offering a reliable and efficient way to analyze and interpret biological sequence data.

Links @ http://raivokolde.github.io/GOsummaries/

Lab @ http://biit.cs.ut.ee/about/main

RaGOO is a tool for coalescing genome assembly contigs into pseudochromosomes via minimap2 alignments to a closely related reference genome. The focus of this tool is on practicality and therefore has the following features:

1. Good performance. On a MacBook Pro using Arabidopsis data, pseudochromosome construction takes less than a minute and the whole pipeline with SV calling takes ~2 minutes.
2. Intact ordering and orienting of contigs.
3. Misassembly correction
4. GFF lift-over
5. Structural variant calling with and integrated version of Assemblytics
6. Confidence scores associated with the grouping, localization, and orientation for each contig.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/malonge/RaGOO

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/ParBLiSS/FastANI

Address of the bookmark: http://www.seqan.de/apps/stellar/

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/baoe/flas

• Project name: SeQuiLa-cov

• Project home page: http://biodatageeks.org/sequila/

• Source code repository: https://github.com/ZSI-Bio/bdg-sequila

• Operating system: Platform independent

• Programming language: Scala

• Other requirements: Docker

• License: Apache License 2.0

Address of the bookmark: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/8/giz094/5543653

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/OpenGene/fastv

https://academic.oup.com/nar/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nar/gkae679/7730539?login=true

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/Zhenlisme/heliano/

Background/Motivation:

The dearth of structural information on alpha helical membrane protein (MPs) has hindered thus far the development of reliable knowledge –based potentials that can be used for automatic prediction of trans-membrane (TM) protein structure. While algorithm for identification of TM segments is available, modelling of the domains of alpha helical MPs involves assembling the segments into a bundle. This requires the correct assignment of the buried and lipid-exposed faces of the TM domains. 

Results: In a cross validated test on single sequences, our trans-membrane MM, correctly predicts the entire topology for 77% of the sequences in a standard dataset of 86 proteins with supervised topology. These results compare favorably with existing methods. 

Source Code: Matlab

Conclusion/Implementation: Here discriminant data mining approach was used to predict the location and orientation of alpha helices in membrane-spanning proteins. It is based on a first order Markov model (MM) with an architecture that corresponds closely to the biological systems. The model is enriched with three types of states for the loop on the cytoplasmic side (outer loop), loop for the non-cytoplasmic side (inner side), and trans-membrane part. The closed association between the biological and Markov states allows us to infer which part of the model architecture are important to capture the information which encodes the membrane topology, and gain a better understanding of the mechanism and constraints involved. Predictor Model was established by various  Markov decoder , and assignment of the membrane helix boundaries was apparent.