cirdna draws circular maps of DNA constructs. It uses graphical shapes including ticks, ranges, and blocks to represent genetic markers (e.g, genes and ESTs) and places them according to their position in a DNA fragment. The markers can be organized in different groups. A group may contain up to 10000 markers, so the program is suitable for drawing circular representations of genomic sequences.
The program reads an input file containing the names and positions of the genetic markers. You must write this file yourself (see Input File Format below). Data for controlling the appearance of the markers may also be added to this file.
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Blank lines in the input file are ignored.
The file is organized in several fields separated by one or more space or TAB characters.
The first non-blank line gives the start position of the DNA fragment to be drawn after the keyword 'Start'. The end position is on the second line following the keyword 'End'.
Then, one or more groups (up to a maximum of 20) of genetic markers are defined. Each group begins with a line consisting of the keyword 'group' and ends with a line consisting of the keyword 'endgroup'.
If desired, a group name can be given on the very next line but will not be displayed (only for compatibilty with lindna).
Next, the individual markers (up to a maximum of 1000) of the group are described. Each marker begins with a line consisting of the keyword 'label' and ends with a line consisting of the keyword 'endlabel'.
Do not start a new marker (by using a 'label' line) before you have closed the previous marker (by using an 'endlabel' line). You must end a previous marker specification before starting a new one. i.e. do not overlap marker specifications in the input file.
For each marker, the line following the 'label' line describes the marker. Three types of markers can be drawn: ticks, blocks, and ranges.
For a tick, the descriptive line begins with the keyword 'Tick', followed by the position of the tick in the DNA fragment, and a number from 0 to 15 specifying the color in which the tick will be drawn (a list of available colors is given below). If desired, a name can be written above the tick. This name must be given on the next line. If more than one name are given (one name per line), only the first one will be displayed.
For a block, the descriptive line begins with the keyword 'Block', followed by the start and end positions of the block in the DNA fragment, and the number of the block's color. If desired, a name can be written above or inside the block. This name must be given on the next line. If more than one name are given (one name per line), only the first one will be displayed.
For a range, the descriptive line begins with the keyword 'Range', followed by the start and end positions of the range in the DNA fragment. Next on the line are the types of boundaries that are to be drawn. The user can choose among '>', '<', '[', ']' and '|' for both start and end boundaries. If none of these types is wanted for a given boundary, then a point '.' must be entered. Next is the color number. If desired, a name can be written above the range. This name must be given on the next line. If more than one name are given (one name per line), only the first one will be displayed.
For any type of markers, names will be written in the same color as the marker. Also, try to avoid long names.
The colors defined in the PLPLOT graphics library are:
0 "BLACK", 1 "RED", 2 "YELLOW", 3 "GREEN", 4 "AQUAMARINE", 5 "PINK", 6 "WHEAT", 7 "GREY", 8 "BROWN", 9 "BLUE", 10 "BLUEVIOLET", 11 "CYAN", 12 "TURQUOISE", 13 "MAGENTA", 14 "SALMON", and 15 "WHITE".
This format can also be used for the program "lindna".
There are many options for controlling the appearance of the plot. Mostly these are "additional qualifiers" and can be specified on the command-line by using the corresponding flag, but will not normally be prompted for. To be prompted for values for them, run the program with the -options global qualifier.