VIRS: A Visual Tool For Identifying Restriction Sites In Multiple DNA Sequences

VIRS (A visual tool for identifying restriction sites in multiple DNA sequences) is an interactive web-based program designed for restriction endonuclease cut sites prediction and visualization. It can afford to analyze multiple DNA sequences simultaneously and produce visual restriction maps with several useful options intended for users' customization. These options also perform in-depth analysis of the restriction maps, such as providing virtual electrophoretic result for digested fragments. Different from other analytical tools, VIRS not only displays visual outputs but also provides the detailed properties of restriction endonucleases that are commercially available. All the information of these enzymes is stored in our internal database, which is updated monthly from the manufacturers' web pages. It is freely available online at http://bis.zju.edu.cn/virs/index.html.In short, VIRS is a simple yet useful tool, which is designed for improving the efficiency of restriction sites analysis. It has a user-friendly interface and contains all the detailed properties of commercially available enzymes. Users can easily predict the restriction fragments for batch sequences and customize the parameters for in-depth analysis. The web server is compatible with all popular internet browsers on most operating systems, and it is running on a high-performance cluster. We will take more effort in developing more choices for analysis customization and integrating with other data in a future version.