FACIL: Fast and Accurate Genetic Code Inference and Logo
Open Access
- 8 June 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Bioinformatics
- Vol. 27 (14), 1929-1933
- https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btr316
Abstract
Motivation: The intensification of DNA sequencing will increasingly unveil uncharacterized species with potential alternative genetic codes. A total of 0.65% of the DNA sequences currently in Genbank encode their proteins with a variant genetic code, and these exceptions occur in many unrelated taxa. Results: We introduce FACIL (Fast and Accurate genetic Code Inference and Logo), a fast and reliable tool to evaluate nucleic acid sequences for their genetic code that detects alternative codes even in species distantly related to known organisms. To illustrate this, we apply FACIL to a set of mitochondrial genomic contigs of Globobulimina pseudospinescens. This foraminifer does not have any sequenced close relative in the databases, yet we infer its alternative genetic code with high confidence values. Results are intuitively visualized in a Genetic Code Logo. Availability and implementation: FACIL is available as a web-based service at http://www.cmbi.ru.nl/FACIL/ and as a stand-alone program. Contact:dutilh@cmbi.ru.nl. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
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