The increasing abundance of large genomic sequence fragments has lead to a need for software to allow the comparison of corresponding genomic fragments from different species.
For various reasons the normal pariwise sequence comparison programs are unsuited to the comparison of such large stretches of DNA. A new type of program able to cope with chromosome sized chunks of sequence was required.
ACT is a tool developed by the Sanger Centre which provides a graphical view (a synteny plot) of the relationships between two very large sequences. It can also add annotation to the sequences to indicate the positions of genes, repeats and other common sequence features.
This course will dicuss the factors which should be considered when comparing large sequences, and will show how to make a comparison and view it using ACT.
It would be helpful to have been on the Ensembl course, but this is not absolutely necessary.