Technology or method
Sequence alignment
Lining up DNA or protein sequences to find similarities. Dynamic programming finds the best global or local alignment.
BLAST
A fast heuristic tool for finding similar sequences in large databases.Source: Altschul et al., 1990
Step 5 of 7ReadingTechnology or method
How BLAST connects
BLAST uses
Technology or method
Biological databases
Public archives such as GenBank for sequences, UniProt for proteins and the Protein Data Bank for structures.
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Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
Basic local alignment search tool (opens the original in a new tab)
Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, et al. (1990). Journal of Molecular Biology 215:403-410.
BLAST, the fast heuristic search used to compare sequences against databases.
Peer-reviewedPrimary research