Swapsc

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The SWAPSC package, or Sliding Window Analysis Procedure for detecting Selective Constraints, is a computer software system, published in May 2004, for analyzing genetic data structured for a biological family tree, or phylogenetic tree.[1] The genetic data is analyzed for constraints in protein-coding sequence alignments.

SWAPSC is used to dissect the constraints on the evolution of protein-coding genes.[1] The software estimates rates of the nucleotide substitutions along specific codon regions within each branch of a phylogenetic tree. The program uses many sets of simulated sequence alignments when estimating the probabilities of synonymous and non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions. Afterward, the software conducts a statistical analysis to determine the optimum window size for detecting selective constraints.[1] Finally, the optimum window size is slid along the real alignment, and a test is conducted to rate significance of the estimated number of synonymous and non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions within each sliding step.[1]

The software system generates several user-friendly output files.[1] SWAPSC has been implemented to run on either Microsoft Windows or Linux platforms.[1]

Availability: SWAPSC is available at:

http://www.may.ie/academic/biology/staff/mfmolecevolandbioinf.shtml Distribution versions for both Linux & MS Windows systems are available, including a manual and example files.[1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Mario A. Fares, Department of Biology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland, Bioinformatics, vol. 20 issue 16, Oxford University Press, May 2004, pp. 2867-2868, webpage: BioInf-abstract-20-16-2867.

[edit] References