Clustal

Clustal is a series of programs used for multiple sequence alignment in bioinformatics. The Clustal series includes ClustalV, ClustalW, and ClustalX, with Clustal Omega being the latest addition. These programs are widely used in molecular biology research and are available for free download.

History

The first version of Clustal, ClustalV, was developed in the late 1980s. It was followed by ClustalW, which improved on the original by adding more sophisticated weighting, position-specific gap penalties and sequence profiles. ClustalX, a graphical user interface for ClustalW, was later developed to make the program more user-friendly. The most recent version, Clustal Omega, was released in 2011 and allows for multiple sequence alignment of hundreds of thousands of sequences in a reasonable time.

Functionality

Clustal programs perform multiple sequence alignment through a three-step process. First, they perform pairwise sequence alignments to calculate distance matrices that represent the divergence of each pair of sequences. Then, they use these distance matrices to create a guide tree. Finally, they use this guide tree to carry out the multiple sequence alignment.

Applications

Clustal programs are used in a variety of biological research applications. They are particularly useful in phylogenetic analysis, where they can help to determine the evolutionary relationships between different organisms. They are also used in protein structure prediction, where they can help to identify conserved regions and predict the function of unknown proteins.

See also

• Multiple sequence alignment
• Bioinformatics
• Phylogenetic analysis
• Protein structure prediction

References

Clustal Resources
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