preAssemble: a tool for automatic sequencer trace data processing

BACKGROUND: Trace or chromatogram files (raw data) are produced by automatic nucleic acid sequencing equipment or sequencers. Each file contains information which can be interpreted by specialised software to reveal the sequence (base calling). This is done by the sequencer proprietary software or publicly available programs. Depending on the size of a sequencing project the number of trace files can vary from just a few to thousands of files. Sequencing quality assessment on various criteria is important at the stage preceding clustering and contig assembly. Two major publicly available packages – Phred and Staden are used by preAssemble to perform sequence quality processing. RESULTS: The preAssemble pre-assembly sequence processing pipeline has been developed for small to large scale automatic processing of DNA sequencer chromatogram (trace) data. The Staden Package Pregap4 module and base-calling program Phred are utilized in the pipeline, which produces detailed and self-explanatory output that can be displayed with a web browser. preAssemble can be used successfully with very little previous experience, however options for parameter tuning are provided for advanced users. preAssemble runs under UNIX and LINUX operating systems. It is available for downloading and will run as stand-alone software. It can also be accessed on the Norwegian Salmon Genome Project web site where preAssemble jobs can be run on the project server. CONCLUSION: preAssemble is a tool allowing to perform quality assessment of sequences generated by automatic sequencing equipment. preAssemble is flexible since both interactive jobs on the preAssemble server and the stand alone downloadable version are available. Virtually no previous experience is necessary to run a default preAssemble job, on the other hand options for parameter tuning are provided. Consequently preAssemble can be used as efficiently for just several trace files as for large scale sequence processing.