DeSignate: detecting signature characters in gene sequence alignments for taxon diagnoses

Thomas Hütter*, Maximilian Ganser, Manuel Kocher, Merima Halkic, Sabine Agatha, Nikolaus Augsten

*Korrespondierende/r Autor/-in für diese Arbeit

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelPeer-reviewed

Abstract

Background
Molecular characters have been added in integrative taxonomic approaches in recent years. Nevertheless, taxon diagnoses are still widely restricted to morphological characters. The inclusion of molecular characters into taxon diagnoses is not only hampered by problems, such as their definition and the designation of their positions in a reference alignment, but also by the technical effort.

Results
DeSignate is a tool for character-based taxon diagnoses that includes a novel ranking scheme. It detects and classifies individual and combined signature characters (diagnostic molecular characters) based on so-called character state vectors. An intuitive web application guides the user through the analysis process and provides the results at a glance. Further, formal definitions and a uniform terminology of characters are introduced.

Conclusions
DeSignate facilitates the inclusion of diagnostic molecular characters and their positions to complement taxon diagnoses. Compared to previous solutions, the tool simplifies the workflow and improves reproducibility and traceability of the results. The tool is freely available as a web application at (https://designate.dbresearch.uni-salzburg.at/) and is open source (https://github.com/DatabaseGroup/DeSignate/).
OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer151
Seiten (von - bis)151
Seitenumfang9
FachzeitschriftBMC Bioinformatics
Jahrgang21
Ausgabenummer1
DOIs
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 20 Apr. 2020

Systematik der Wissenschaftszweige 2012

  • 102 Informatik
  • 106 Biologie

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