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^^ What is T-DistinctiEnz
T-DistinctiEnz is a web tool for performing a virtual T-RFLP (terminal
restriction fragment length polymorphism) with
a set of restriction enzymes on a set of DNA sequences.
The name T-DistinctiEnz comes from DISTINCTION. The tool was produced
by Mohammadreza Rezailashkajani and Delnaz Roshandel, Department of Bioinformatics,
Research Center for Gastroenterology
and Liver Diseases, Shaheed Beheshti
University of Medical Sciences. We wish to express our gratitude
to Caroline Reiff who first suggested the idea of producing
such a tool (when we were all taking the Biocomputing module in University
of Manchester) for her valuable comments on completing the tool by adding
new features a biologist may need.
T-DistinctiEnz is used to get an
estimate of DISTINCTION (Resolution) power of a set of enzymes for
a set
of sequences during
a t-RFLP analysis. In other words, it helps the user to learn with what enzyme
or set of enzymes, she can best DISTINGUISH among a set of sequences
using t-RFLP. To see a brief description of t-RFLP, please click
here.
T-DistinctiEnz performs a restriction analysis on each sequence and examines
all tagged fragments to see how
unique the cut fragments from each sequence are when compared to all other
fragment sets produced from other sequences
in the uploaded set of sequences. This depends on the type of t-RFLP analysis.
In a 3' t-RFLP or 5' t-RFLP, the 3'-tagged or 5'-tagged fragment is analyzed
while in a dual t-RFLP both are considered. Finally a Resolution
Power (Ratio)
is calculated by simply dividing the number of unique-fragment sets by
the number
of the submitted sequences. If Resolution power is 100%, it
means that that set of enzymes can fully
perform a DISTINCTION analysis among the submitted sequences. However if only
ONE pattern is produced by all sequences, the resolution power will be set
to 0 (e.g. it is not calculated from the formula above).
Notice: For very long sequences, if fragments over 100,000 base
pairs are produced then the Resolution Power may be falsely high because
over 100,000 (having a log value near 4) sequences may produce zero or negative
migration distances (see
below). In other words, the application calculates differences while in
RFLP Gel we get lower resolution.
Resolution power = number of unique-fragment sets / number
of the submitted sequences |
The program allows the user to:
Alternatively, T-DistinctiEnz can be used with uploading a file with one sequence just to simply see the virtual T-RFLP Gel view of any sequence.