Benefits and Features
- Performs higher-end processing of large cDNA data sets on a desktop computer
- Automates multiple steps in the analysis of cDNA libraries
- Creates Excel file libraries to curate and manage cDNA sequencing projects
- Used by collaborators in developing countries without access to high-performance infrastructure
Overview
The Desktop cDNA Annotation System (dCAS) automates large-scale cDNA sequence analysis. In a single desktop application, dCAS allows users to import raw cDNA sequences, clean sequences, build sequence contigs, perform SignalP analysis, and compare BLAST contigs against numerous BLAST databases. All dCAS results are easily curated using Microsoft Excel. dCAS also allows users to write their annotated genes and corresponding translated products to an FASTA format for submission to GenBank.
Access
This software is provided free of charge by NIAID.
Background
dCAS was developed by the NIAID Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Computational Biosciences Branch, in collaboration with Dr. José Ribeiro, chief of the Vector Biology Section of the NIAID Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research. dCAS performs high-end processing of large cDNA datasets on researchers’ desktop computers. This type of analysis would otherwise have to be done on a high-performance computing environment. dCAS is used by NIAID collaborators and researchers in developing countries who prefer using a desktop application or do not have access to high-performance computing infrastructure.