title: Scanning protein sequence databanks using a distributed processing workstation network.
abstract: The programme pscan has been developed to distribute protein databank scans over a network of computers that share a common file system. pscan may be used in conjunction with most conventional sequence comparison programmes with few modifications. In test runs using the Smith-Waterman dynamic programming algorithm, the time required to scan a 6858 sequence databank using a query sequence 740 residues long was reduced from approximately 50 min for a single processor, to approximately 11 minutes for five processors. Accordingly, pscan provides a low-cost, portable alternative to dedicated parallel processing computers.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Barton
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D015698:Genomic Library; D011381:Programming Languages; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins