MLST@SNaP: User-friendly software for simplification of multilocus sequence typing and dissemination of microbial population analyses

Abstract

Summary: Microbial multilocus sequence typing is a course-grained approach for classifying micro-organisms that involves intense gene sequencing, limiting its application in clinical and research laboratories. Multiplexes targeting single-nucleotide polymorphisms might replace this impractical method by providing the SNaP profile. We here describe mlst@snap, a fast, user-friendly and automated process to convert thousands of MLST sequences or sequence types into SNaP profiles and vice versa. The software largely increases the promptness of microbial population data analyses, being presently designed for the micro-organisms Aspergillus fumigatus, Burkholderia cenocepacia, Burkholderia cepacia, Burkholderia contaminans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. mlst@snap is freely available for macintosh, unix and windows systems as supplementary material of this manuscript, at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/kc4fwabtb8lu1/setupMLST%40SNaP and http://www.portugene.com/MLSTSNaP.html accompanied by tutorial, example files and some data. © 2014 British Ecological Society 5 5 May 2014 10.1111/2041-210X.12170 Application Application © 2014 The Authors. Methods in Ecology and Evolution © 2014 British Ecological Society.