eL-DASionator: an LDAS upload file generator.
BACKGROUND
The Distributed Annotation System (DAS) allows merging of DNA sequence annotations from multiple sources and provides a single annotation view. A straightforward way to establish a DAS annotation server is to use the "Lightweight DAS" server (LDAS). Onto this type of server, annotations can be uploaded as flat text files in a defined format. The popular Ensembl ContigView uses the same format for the transient upload and display of user data.


RESULTS
In order to easily generate LDAS upload files we developed a software tool that is accessible via a web-interface http://atgc.lirmm.fr/eldasionator.html. Users can submit their DNA sequences of interest. Our program (i) aligns these sequences to the reference sequences of Ensembl, (ii) determines start and end positions of each sequence on the reference sequence, and (iii) generates a formatted annotation file. This file can be used to load any LDAS annotation server or it can be uploaded to the Ensembl ContigView.


CONCLUSIONS
The eL-DASionator is an on-line tool that is intended for life-science researchers with little bioinformatics background. It conveniently generates LDAS upload files, and makes it possible to generate annotations in a standard format that permits comfortable sharing of this data.
Negre
Vincent
V
Institut de Génétique Humaine, CNRS UPR 1142, 141 rue de la Cardonille, 34396 Montpellier, France. developer@methdb.net
Grunau
Christoph
C
D001483:Base Sequence / Q000502:physiology; D004247:DNA / Q000502:physiology; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030541:Databases, Genetic / Q000145:classification; D012984:Software
D004247:DNA