Annow: BLAST Based Analytical Sequence Annotation Software

Abstract

As gene sequencing becomes more common the annotations that give meaning to biological data change. The large quantity of –omics data generated by these projects maintain static linkages to annotations that change as experimental evidence accumulates. The validity of data across several biological disciplines relies on the accuracy of these static linkages. This raises an informatics challenge as data sets large and small require diligent curation costing valuable resources. Annow was developed to be agile software to meet this challenge; updating data sets, while providing relevant alignment data, analysis metrics, and resource updating. Incredibly user friendly and operating offline Annow brings large data analysis capabilities to the personal computer and can update thousands of annotations in addition to more granular analysis in short time frames that are not possible with web-based solutions. The result of which is more a cost effective manner to produce reliable, accurate results applicable to any field utilizing biological data and annotations derived from gene sequencing.