BOL: Related items

BLAST+ 2.10.0 released

Jit — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 20:44:11 -0600

The BLAST+ 2.10.0 release is now available from at FTP site. The new version offers the following improvements:

updated composition-based statistics for protein-protein (including translated BLAST) comparisons to provide stable results when you request fewer than the default number of results
an experimental Adaptive Composition Based Statistics option that increases the likelihood of finding novel results. To enable this option set the environment variable ADAPTIVE_CBS to 1. We welcome your feedback on this new option.

See the release notes for details on more improvements and bug fixes with this release.

BLAST+ is also available in docker, please read more for details.

The new version fully supports the version 5 (v5) databases with built in taxonomy and other improvements. For more information on v5 databases (download), see the previous NCBI Insights article and the recording of our webinar. If you are still using the older version 4 (v4) databases, we recommend you begin using the v5 version as soon as possible. We will discontinue updates to the older v4 databases in early 2020.

BLAST+ Team

Basics of BLAST Programs !

BioStar — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 06:04:26 -0500

The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) is a powerful bioinformatics program used to compare an input sequence (such as DNA, RNA, or protein sequences) against a database of sequences to find regions of similarity. Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), BLAST is widely used for identifying species, finding functional and evolutionary relationships between sequences, and predicting the function of novel sequences.

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.

RASTtk : algorithm for building custom annotation pipelines and annotating batches of genomes

Abhi — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:07:59 -0500

The RAST (Rapid Annotation using Subsystem Technology) annotation engine was built in 2008 to annotate bacterial and archaeal genomes. It works by offering a standard software pipeline for identifying genomic features (i.e., protein-encoding genes and RNA) and annotating their functions. Recently, in order to make RAST a more useful research tool and to keep pace with advancements in bioinformatics, it has become desirable to build a version of RAST that is both customizable and extensible. In this paper, we describe the RAST tool kit (RASTtk), a modular version of RAST that enables researchers to build custom annotation pipelines. RASTtk offers a choice of software for identifying and annotating genomic features as well as the ability to add custom features to an annotation job. RASTtk also accommodates the batch submission of genomes and the ability to customize annotation protocols for batch submissions. This is the first major software restructuring of RAST since its inception.

More at http://www.nature.com/articles/srep08365

Address of the bookmark: http://rast.nmpdr.org/

NCBI BLAST have added new columns to the Descriptions

Neel — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 09:56:07 -0600

NCBI BLAST have added new columns to the Descriptions Table for web BLAST output. The new columns are Scientific Name, Common Name, Taxid, and Accession Length. Common Name and Accession Length are now part of the default display. You can click 'Select columns' or 'Manage columns' to add or remove columns from the display Your preferences will be saved for your next visit to BLAST, and when you download your results, whatever columns you have displayed will be saved. See the NCBI Insights post (https://go.usa.gov/x7fPE) for more details.

MAKER

Jitendra Narayan — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 15:59:24 -0600

MAKER is a portable and easily configurable genome annotation pipeline.Its purpose is to allow smaller eukaryotic and prokaryotic genome projects to independently annotate their genomes and to create genome databases. MAKER identifies repeats, aligns ESTs and proteins to a genome, produces ab-initio gene predictions and automatically synthesizes these data into gene annotations having evidence-based quality values.

More at http://www.yandell-lab.org/software/maker.html

Address of the bookmark: http://www.yandell-lab.org/software/maker.html

NCBI Remap

Jit — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 11:02:26 -0600

NCBI Remap. This tool is conceptually similar to liftOver in that in manages conversions between a pair of genome assemblies but it uses different methods to achieve these mappings. It is also available through a simple web interface or you can use the API for NCBI Remap.

More at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/tools/remap

API http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/tools/remap/docs/api

Address of the bookmark: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/tools/remap

GeneMANIA

Jit — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 09:55:16 -0500

Faster, more accurate algorithms function prediction "GeneMANIA (Multiple Association Network Integration Algorithm)" have however been developed in recent years and are publicly available on the web, indicating the future direction of function prediction.

Address of the bookmark: http://genemania.org/

AnnotationSketch

Jit — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 17:54:22 -0500

The AnnotationSketch module is a versatile and efficient C-based drawing library for GFF3-compatible genomic annotations. It is included in the GenomeTools distribution. Additionally, bindings to the Lua, Python and Rubyprogramming languages are provided.

http://genometools.org/annotationsketch.html

Address of the bookmark: http://genometools.org/annotationsketch.html

Genome Annotation using MAKER tutorial !

Shruti Paniwala — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:39:23 -0600

MAKER is a great tool for annotating a reference genome using empirical and ab initiogene predictions. GMOD, the umbrella organization that includes MAKER, has some nice tutorials online for running MAKER. However, these were quite simplified examples and it took a bit of effort to wrap my head completely around everything. Here I will describe a de novo genome annotation for Boa constrictor in detail, so that there is a record and that it is easy to use this as a guide to annotate any genome.

Address of the bookmark: https://www.biostars.org/p/261203/

DFAST: a flexible prokaryotic genome annotation pipeline for faster genome publication

Jit — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:26:16 -0600

We developed a prokaryotic genome annotation pipeline, DFAST, that also supports genome submission to public sequence databases. DFAST was originally started as an on-line annotation server, and to date, over 7,000 jobs have been processed since its first launch in 2016. Here, we present a newly implemented background annotation engine for DFAST, which is also available as a standalone command-line program. The new engine can annotate a typical-sized bacterial genome within 10 minutes, with rich information such as pseudogenes, translation exceptions, and orthologous gene assignment between given reference genomes. In addition, the modular framework of DFAST allows users to customize the annotation workflow easily and will also facilitate extensions for new functions and incorporation of new tools in the future.

Availability and Implementation

The software is implemented in Python 3 and runs in both Python 2.7 and 3.4– on Macintosh and Linux systems. It is freely available at https://github.com/nigyta/dfast_core/ under the GPLv3 license with external binaries bundled in the software distribution. An on-line version is also available at https://dfast.nig.ac.jp/.

Address of the bookmark: https://dfast.nig.ac.jp/