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Recent developments in the MAFFT multiple sequence alignment program

Katoh, K., Toh, H.·2008·Briefings in Bioinformatics

Abstract

The accuracy and scalability of multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of DNAs and proteins have long been and are still important issues in bioinformatics. To rapidly construct a reasonable MSA, we developed the initial version of the MAFFT program in 2002. MSA software is now facing greater challenges in both scalability and accuracy than those of 5 years ago. As increasing amounts of sequence data are being generated by large-scale sequencing projects, scalability is now critical in many situations. The requirement of accuracy has also entered a new stage since the discovery of functional noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs); the secondary structure should be considered for constructing a high-quality alignment of distantly related ncRNAs. To deal with these problems, in 2007, we updated MAFFT to Version 6 with two new techniques: the PartTree algorithm and the Four-way consistency objective function. The former improved the scalability of progressive alignment and the latter improved the accuracy of ncRNA alignment. We review these and other techniques that MAFFT uses and suggest possible future directions of MSA software as a basis of comparative analyses. MAFFT is available at http://align.bmr.kyushu-u.ac.jp/mafft/software/.

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Metadata

Authors
Katoh, K., & Toh, H.
Venue
Briefings in Bioinformatics
Published
2008-03-27
Volume
9
Issue
4
Pages
286-298
ISSN
  • 1467-5463 (ISSN-L)
  • 1477-4054
OpenAlex
W2119362018
Cited by
3,586
References
9
FWCI
68.12
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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Katoh, K., & Toh, H. (2008). Recent developments in the MAFFT multiple sequence alignment program. Briefings in Bioinformatics. https://doi.org/10.1093/bib/bbn013

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