Bacterial Feature Finder (BaFF) - A system for extracting features overrepresented in sets of prokaryotic organisms

Abstract

The results of some experimental and computational techniques are given in terms of large sets of organisms, especially prokaryotic. While their distinctive features can provide useful data regarding specific phenomenon, there are no automated tools for extracting them. Results: We present here the Bacterial Feature Finder web server, a tool to automatically interrogate sets of prokaryotic organisms provided by the user to evaluate their specific biological features. At the core of the system is a searchable database of qualitative and quantitative features compiled for more than 23 000 prokaryotic organisms. Both the input set of organisms and the background set used to calculate the enriched features can be directly provided by the user, or they can be obtained by searching the database. The results are presented via an interactive graphical interface, with links to external resources. Availability and implementation: The web server is freely available at http://csbg.cnb.csic.es/BaFF. It has been tested in the main web browsers and does not require any especial plug-ins or additional software. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.