Some recent articles discussing computer software designed for use by biologists (I can’t personally vouch for any of these programs, but thought they might be of interest to readers of CSH Protocols):

Even Better Free Molecular Biology Software: Serial Cloner–the always valuable Bitesize Bio website has a review of Serial Cloner, a cross platform program for molecular biologists:

“It is very intuitive and is packed with features; from basics like constructing importing sequences, constructing plasmid maps and restriction mapping, through more complex things like sequence alignment, Gateway cloning and siRNA design.”

One of the commenters on the article also suggests PlasmaDNA.

iPhone apps every biologist needs: article from The Scientist, detailing 10 apps of interest. While many look useful, I’m not sure how many of them have added appeal on a mobile device (as opposed to use on a laptop or desktop computer). How often do you need to consult the periodic table while you’re on-the-go?

Also, I may be a luddite, but in my lab days, you wouldn’t even take a lab manual to the bench, you’d photocopy the protocol you were going to use because you didn’t want the expensive manual exposed to harsh chemicals and other contaminants. Are people really using expensive and fragile items like the iPhone at the lab bench? Do you set your iPhone down next to the phenol, just behind the HCl? Can you use it while wearing gloves? Wouldn’t you worry about all the E. coli contaminating your gloves from the plasmid preps you’re doing? Do you really want to smear that all over the device you’ll be holding next to your face?

9/12/09–Edited to add–Here’s another list, of 50 Useful iPhone Apps for Science Students & Teachers.

To aid in the study of genetic diseases, the International Haplotype Map Project has developed a haplotype map of the human genome, a tool that displays common patterns of genetic variation. While data from the project are available for unrestricted public use from the project’s website, the new tools needed to browse the map can be difficult to master for the beginner. This month’s issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocols features a set of articles with clear, step-by-step instructions for the analysis of HapMap data.

Browsing HapMap Data Using the Genome Browser provides details on how to navigate to and explore HapMap data for a gene or region of interest. Written by Albert Vernon Smith, this protocol shows how to analyze a candidate gene to find out whether there are any common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the immediate vicinity, what those SNPs’ alleles are, and the relative frequencies of the alleles in the population. As one of our featured articles for the month, it’s freely available to subscribers and non-subscribers.

The other articles in the set (subscribers only) are Generating HapMap Data Text Reports Using the Genome Browser, Manipulating HapMap Data Using HaploView, Retrieving HapMap Data Using HapMart, and Retrieving HapMap Data via Bulk Download. If your institution does not yet subscribe and you’d like to see these articles, you can sign up here for a free three month trial.

Tandem repeats are short stretches of DNA that are repeated head-to-tail. These are increasingly used as markers in forensic and genotyping research. But not all tandem repeats are created equal, as they display varying rates of stability. A repeat must exhibit enough instability to generate enough heterozygosity in a population to be of use in discriminating between individuals in a population. Too much instability though makes it difficult to look over large evolutionary distances, as it becomes difficult to see relatedness between samples. To determine which repeats are useful as markers, Kevin Verstrepen’s lab at Harvard has created the SERV (“Sequence-Based Estimation of Repeats Variability”) applet, which enables finding repeats in DNA sequences and estimating their variability. First introduced in this Genome Access paper, Sequence-based estimation of minisatellite and microsatellite repeat variability, Verstrepen and colleagues have now written a guide to using the SERV Applet, available in this month’s issue of CSH Protocols.

Legendre, M., Pochet, N., Pak, T., Verstrepen, K.J. (2007). Sequence-based estimation of minisatellite and microsatellite repeat variability. Genome Research, 17(12), 1787-1796. DOI: 10.1101/gr.6554007
Legendre, M., Verstrepen, K.J. (2008). Using the SERV Applet to Detect Tandem Repeats in DNA Sequences and to Predict Their Variability. Cold Spring Harbor Protocols, 2008(2), pdb.ip50-pdb.ip50. DOI: 10.1101/pdb.ip50

Over the last few months (and in coming months), we’ve presented a series of protocols for genotyping and DNA isolation in a variety of model organisms. Much of this material was adapted in advance from Genetic Variation: A Laboratory Manual, which is now available from CSHL Press. It’s a difficult subject for a laboratory manual, as it’s such a rapidly advancing field, and the question when it was proposed was, is it possible to put together a manual that isn’t obsolete the moment it’s published? Read the rest of this entry »

September’s issue of CSH Protocols is upon us (my, that was a quick summer–Kurt Weill sure knew what he was talking about). We’re featuring two protocols this month, both available freely to non-subscribers (as are all of our sample protocols). The first is for generating mouse models for squamous cell carcinoma and the second is for the Oligonucleotide Ligation Assay (OLA), used for finding Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP’s). Read the rest of this entry »

The July issue of CSH Protocols is available and features a set of articles detailing the basics for common Bioinformatics techniques (and just in time for the 4th of July, allowing me to make a “blast” pun). Read the rest of this entry »