Absynte: a web tool to analyze the evolution of orthologous archaeal and bacterial gene clusters

Absynte (Archaeal and Bacterial Synteny Explorer) is a web-based service designed to display local syntenies in completely sequenced prokaryotic chromosomes. The genomic contexts are determined with a multiple center star clustering topology on the basis of a user-provided protein sequence and all ( or a set of) chromosomes from the publicly available archaeal and bacterial genomes. The results consist in a dynamic web page where a consistent color-coding permits a rapid visual evaluation of the relative positioning of genes with similar sequences within the synteny. Each gene composing the synteny can be further queried interactively using either local or remote databases. Absynte results can be exported in. CSV or high-resolution,. PDF formats for printing, archival, further editing or publication purposes. Performance, realtime computation, user-friendliness and daily database updates constitute the principal advantages of Absynte over similar web services.