Krait2: a versatile software for microsatellite investigation, visualization and marker development

Abstract

Background: Microsatellites are highly polymorphic repeat sequences ubiquitously interspersed throughout almost all genomes which are widely used as powerful molecular markers in diverse fields. Microsatellite expansions play pivotal roles in gene expression regulation and are implicated in various neurological diseases and cancers. Although much effort has been devoted to developing efficient tools for microsatellite identification, there is still a lack of a powerful tool for large-scale microsatellite analysis. Results: We present Krait2, a user-friendly graphical tool for investigating perfect, imperfect and compound microsatellites from FASTA and FASTQ formatted genomic datasets. Krait2 not only provides features such as primer design, repeat filtering, repeat annotation and statistical analysis, but also offers various output formats to support customized downstream analysis. Moreover, it has capability of analyzing multiple genomes simultaneously and conducting comparative analysis. Conclusions: Krait2 is a versatile and easy-to-use software for both novices and experts to identify and analyze microsatellites. The installer and source code are available at https://github.com/lmdu/krait2.