title: A consensus program for molecular sequences.
abstract: Although molecular biologists often calculate consensus sequences from aligned DNA or protein sequences, relatively little is known about the properties of many of the consensus methods being used. Consequently, we wrote a program, CONSENSUS, to analyze and compare methods of calculating a consensus result (a base, an ambiguity code or a subset of codes) at a position in an aligned set of molecular sequences. The program supports alphabets of up to four symbols (e.g. [R,Y] or [A,C,G,T]). The program's output makes it suitable for exploratory data analysis or for selecting values of thresholds or confidence levels in consensus methods having such parameters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Canada.
authors.forename: W H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: F R
authors.initials: FR
authors.lastname: McMorris
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins; D004247:DNA