Orthology relations can be used to transfer annotations from one gene (or protein) to another. Hence, detecting orthology relations has become an important task in the post-genomic era. Various genomic events, such as duplication and horizontal gene transfer, can cause erroneous assignment of orthology relations. In closely-related species, gene neighborhood information can be used to resolve many ambiguities in orthology inference. Here we present OrthoGNC, a software for accurately predicting pairwise orthology relations based on gene neighborhood conservation. Analyses on simulated and real data reveal the high accuracy of OrthoGNC. In addition to orthology detection, OrthoGNC can be employed to investigate the conservation of genomic context among potential orthologs detected by other methods. OrthoGNC is freely available online at http://bs.ipm.ir/softwares/orthognc and http://tinyurl.com/orthoGNC.

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~wongls/projects/orthoGNC/

Address of the bookmark: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022917301663

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/mkirsche/Jasmine

For the full list of features, improvements and fixes, see the release notes:https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tools/gbench/releasenotes

New Features

• BLAST Tool: added support for local custom BLAST databases
• Graphical Sequence View: added log scaling option for graph tracks
• Generic Table View: new tutorial added

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Project Tree View: Genomic Collections/Assemblies now show accessions, not just names
• Tree View: layout updated to better accommodate nodes of different sizes
• Table Import Dialog (MacOS): fixed issue with table visibility
• Fixed bug where different molecules IDs in GenBank could resolve to the same sequence
• Graphical Sequence View: fixed issue where sequence track was not shown for some sequences
• Graphical Sequence View: fixed protein coloration methods
• Graphical Sequence View: improved rendering of Markers to better indicate boundaries and produce higher quality PDF images
• Create Gene Model tool: fixed scenario when gene model tool failed with local sequences
• Search View: ORF Finder – fixed incorrect protein lengths
• Fixed bug with not opening project file (.gbp) on a click
• Fixed issues in GVF import
• Fixed BLAST Search tool against NCBI databases not working
• Fixed tblastn (protein BLAST) not working in standalone mode
• Fixed GTF export failure

More at file:///home/urbe/Downloads/diamond_manual.pdf

http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v12/n1/full/nmeth.3176.html

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/bbuchfink/diamond

The changes in nr preserve the taxonomic diversity of the entries in the database while reducing the number of titles for identical sequences. GenPept accessions are still accessible via www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/$GENBANK_ACCESSION or the IPG website https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ipg/.

The "Identical Proteins" link in the alignments section of the webBLAST results takes you to a full list of all accessions associated with a sequence.

For BLAST+ users downloading nr_v5: the database is now approximately 50% smaller, resulting in faster downloads and BLAST searches, and smaller disk space requirements. The database is downloadable at:  ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/db/v5/

For BLAST+ there is a cleanup script to help you manage the transition to this smaller database. The script removes unused database volumes: ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/temp/cleanup-blastdb-volumes.py

Here are the new rules on how we keep titles in nr_v5:

1.    We keep all refseq, swissprot, pir and PDB titles.

2.    We keep any GenPept titles with a TAXID that has not already been seen in the record.

3.    We keep at least five GenPept titles regardless of whether the TAXIDS have been seen before or not in this record.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact blast-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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.

The Representational State Transfer (REST) sample clients are provided for a number of programming languages. For details of how to use these clients, download the client and run the program without any arguments.

For details see Environment setup for REST Web Services and Examples for Perl REST Web Services Clients pages.