BLASTer is an online tool to run BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) on the DiaGrid Hub. BLASTer lets a user configure, submit and monitor BLAST searches (jobs) and obtain output data all from a convenient graphical interface. BLASTer utilizes Condor scheduling across the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing’s main high performance computing clusters so no matter the size of the input file, whether it be one sequence or thousands of sequences, the searches are completed quickly and efficiently. Once a search is completed, the user may download a zip file containing the results. For more usage information, see the User Guide.

BLASTer is able to handle a large number of input sequences per job. The tool efficiently splits the files to make use of the large computing resources that are available. Input files in the range of 50MB to 100MB (and larger!) in size can be uploaded to be analyzed by BLASTer. Larger input files will, however, take a longer time to upload to and complete by BLASTer.

BLASTer utilizes BLAST+ version 2.2.25 which includes blastx, blastn, blastp, tblastn, and tblastx. The searches can be tested against any of the NCBI databases found at ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/db/. The current version of the BLASTer interface features options including:

• Expectation Value
• Word Size
• Scoring Matrix
• Maximum Target Sequences

The Wishlist in the BLASTer tool page can be used to request new features.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Christopher Thompson; Brian Raub (2013), "BLASTer," http://diagrid.org/resources/blastgui.

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