home | help
SSEARCH(1)		     General Commands Manual		      SSEARCH(1)

NAME
     ssearch - scan a protein or DNA sequence library for similar sequences

SYNOPSIS
     ssearch [-a -b # -d # -E # -f # -g # -h -i -l FASTLIBS  -L -r STATFILE -m #
     -O filename -Q -s SMATRIX -w # -z ] query-sequence-file library-file

     ssearch [-QabdEfghilmOrswz] query-file @library-name-file

     ssearch [-QabdEfghilmOrswz] query-file "%PRMVI"

     ssearch [-aEfghilmrsw] - interactive mode

DESCRIPTION
     ssearch  compares	a protein or DNA sequence to all of the entries in a se-
     quence library using the rigorous Smith-Waterman algorithm (Smith	and  Wa-
     terman, J. Mol. Biol. (1983) 147:195-197.	For example, ssearch can compare
     a protein sequence to all of the sequences in the NBRF PIR protein sequence
     database.	 ssearch will automatically decide whether the query sequence is
     DNA or protein by reading the query sequence  as  protein	and  determining
     whether the `amino-acid composition' is more than 85% A+C+G+T.  The program
     can  be  invoked either with command line arguments or in interactive mode.
     ssearch compares a query sequence to a sequence library which  consists  of
     sequence  data  interspersed with comments, see below.  The fasta programs,
     including ssearch, use a standard text format sequence file.  Lines  begin-
     ning  with or lower case, blanks,tabs and unrecognizable characters are ig-
     nored.  ssearch expects sequences to  use	the  single  letter  amino  acid
     codes,  see  protcodes(1) .  Library files for ssearch should have the form
     shown below.

OPTIONS
     ssearch can be directed to change the scoring  matrix,  search  parameters,
     output  format,  and  default search directories by entering options on the
     command line (preceeded by a `-'). All of the options  should  preceed  the
     file name and ktup arguments). Alternately, these options can be changed by
     setting environment variables.  The options and environment variables are:

     -a     (SHOWALL)  Modifies  the display of the two sequences in alignments.
	    Normally,  both  sequences	are  shown  only  where   they	 overlap
	    (SHOWALL=0); If -a or the environment variable SHOWALL = 1, both se-
	    quences are shown in their entirety.

     -b #   The  number  of  similarity scores to be shown when the -Q option is
	    used.  This value is usually calculated based on the actual scores.

     -d #   The number of alignments to be shown.  Normally, ssearch  shows  the
	    same number of alignments as similarity scores.  By using ssearch -Q
	    -b 200 -d 50, one would see the top scoring 200 sequences and align-
	    ments for the 50 best scores.

     -E #   The expectation value threshold for displaying similarity scores and
	    sequence  alignments.   fasta  -Q  -E 2.0 would show all library se-
	    quences with scores expected to occur no more than 2 times by chance
	    in a search of the library.

     -f #   Penalty for the first residue in a gap (-12 by default).

     -g #   Penalty for additional residues in a gap (-2 by default).

     -h     Do not display histogram of similarity scores.

     -l file
	    (FASTLIBS) The name of the library menu file.  Normally this will be
	    determined by the environment variable FASTLIBS.  However, a library
	    menu file can also be specified with -l.

     -L     display more information about the library sequence  in  the  align-
	    ment.

     -m #   (MARKX)  =0,1,2,3.	Alternate  display  of matches and mismatches in
	    alignments. MARKX=0 uses ":","."," ",  for	identities,  consevative
	    replacements,   and   non-conservative  replacements,  respectively.
	    MARKX=1 uses " ","x", and "X".  MARKX=2 does not show the second se-
	    quence, but uses the second alignment line to display matches with a
	    "."  for identity, or with the mismatched  residue	for  mismatches.
	    MARKX=2  is  useful for aligning large numbers of similar sequences.
	    MARKX=3 writes out a file of  library  sequences  in  FASTA  format.
	    MARKX=3  should  always  be used with the "SHOWALL" (-a) option, but
	    this does not completely ensure that all  of  the  sequences  output
	    will be aligned.

     -O filename
	    Sends copy of results to "filename".

     -Q Quiet option.  This allows ssearch to search a database and report
	    the  results without asking any questions. ssearch -Q file library >
	    output can be put in the background or run at a later time with  the
	    unix  'at'	command.  The number of similarity scores and alignments
	    displayed with the -Q option can be modified with  the  -b	(scores)
	    and -d (alignments) options.

     -r     STATFILE Causes ssearch to write out the sequence identifier, super-
	    family  number (if available), and similarity scores to STATFILE for
	    every sequence in the library.  These results are not sorted.

     -s str
	    (SMATRIX) the filename of an alternative scoring matrix  file.   For
	    protein  sequences,  BLOSUM50 is used by default; PAM250 can be used
	    with the command line option -s 250.

     -w #   (LINLEN) output line length for sequence alignments.  (normally  60,
	    can be set up to 200).

     -z     Do not do statistical significance calculation.

EXAMPLES
     (1)    ssearch musplfm.aa $AABANK

     Compare  the  amino  acid sequence in the file musplfm.aa with the complete
     PIR protein sequence library.  This is extremely  slow  and  should  almost
     never  be	done.  ssearch is designed to search very small libraries of se-
     quences.

	  >LCBO bovine preprolactin
	  WILLLSQ ...
	  >LCHU human ...
	  ...

     (2)    ssearch -a -w 80 musplfm.aa lcbo.aa

     Compare the amino acid sequence in the file musplfm.aa with  the  sequences
     in the file lcbo.aa using ktup = 1.  Show both sequences in their entirety,
     with 80 residues on each output line.

     (3)    ssearch

     Run  the  ssearch program in interactive mode.  The program will prompt for
     the file name for the query sequence,  list  alternative  libraries  to  be
     seached (if FASTLIBS is set), and prompt for the ktup.

     You  can  use your own sequence files for ssearch, just be certain to put a
     '>' and comment as the first line before the sequence.

SEE ALSO
     rss(1), align(1), fasta(1), rdf2(1),protcodes(5), dnacodes(5)

AUTHOR
     Bill Pearson
     wrp@virginia.EDU

				      local			      SSEARCH(1)

home | help