VizPrimer: a web server for visualized PCR primer design based on known gene structure.
CONCLUSIONS
The visualization of gene structure plays an important role in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primer design, especially for eukaryotic genes with a number of splice variants that users need to distinguish between via PCR. Here, we describe a visualized web server for primer design named VizPrimer. It utilizes the new information technology (IT) tools, HTML5 to display gene structure and JavaScript to interact with the users. In VizPrimer, the users can focus their attention on the gene structure and primer design strategy, without wasting time calculating the exon positions of splice variants or manually configuring complicated parameters. In addition, VizPrimer is also suitable for the design of PCR primers for amplifying open reading frames and detecting single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).


BACKGROUND
VizPrimer is freely available at http://biocompute.bmi.ac.cn/CZlab/VizPrimer/. The web server supported browsers: Chrome (≥5.0), Firefox (≥3.0), Safari (≥4.0) and Opera (≥10.0).


BACKGROUND
zhangcg@bmi.ac.cn; yangyi528@vip.sina.com.
Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Cognitive and Mental Health Research Center, Beijing 100850, China.
Yang
Y
Zhou
Wubin
W
Qu
Yiming
Y
Lu
Yanchun
Y
Zhang
Xiaolei
X
Wang
Dongsheng
D
Zhao
Yi
Y
Yang
Chenggang
C
Zhang
D000818:Animals; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics*; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D051379:Mice; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000235:genetics
D017931:DNA Primers; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C490239:Nnat protein, mouse; D020033:Protein Isoforms