ZTR: a new format for DNA sequence trace data.
BACKGROUND
To produce an open and extensible file format for DNA trace data which produces compact files suitable for large-scale storage and efficient use of internet bandwidth.


RESULTS
We have created an extensible format named ZTR. For a set of data taken from an ABI-3700 the ZTR format produces trace files which require 61.6% of the disk space used by gzipped SCFv3, and which can be written and read at greater speed. The compression algorithms used for the trace amplitudes are used within the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) trace archive. lmb.cam.ac.uk/pub/staden/io_lib/test_data.
Bonfield
James K
JK
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QH, UK. jkb@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Staden
Rodger
R
D000465:Algorithms; D019295:Computational Biology; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016045:Human Genome Project; D006801:Humans; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012984:Software