Table of Contents
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Introduction
Background
pLOT is a molecular biology tool for mapping plasmids and manipulating sequences. It was initially intended only for my own personal use when I couldn't find software to do exactly what I wanted. Since I had used freeware plasmid editing software back in grad school, I decided to release this for free, noncommercial use in the hopes that it will help some poor grad student someday. pLOT can be used to create new DNA sequences or edit existing ones. It reads Genbank-style formats as well as ab1 chromatograms and certain other plasmid/sequence manipulation program formats. Projects can be saved to standard Genbank format, a modified a Genbank format with additional, program-specific entries or to binary pLOT files when binary data such as chromatogram data is present. pLOT Genbank files use the *.plt extension for the text based file or .pl2 for pLOT binary files. pLOT provides a number of tools for sequence manipulation, annotation and editing and incorporates an expandable library of known and commonly used sequences for auto-detection in unannotated sequences as well as the ability. to insert or deleted sequences. It also features restriction analysis tools for single enzymes and enzyme mixes, virtual gel electrophoresis and many more. It is a work in progress with new features added as time goes on.
Platform Availability
pLOT is currently available only for PCs running Windows with plans to be made available in the future on Mac and Unix/Linus systems.
Programming Language
pLOT is written mostly in (very) old school Visual Basic 6 with some functions written in assembly language. A Java version is in the works which will be able to run on Mac, Unix and PC but this is still a while away due to the limited amount of free time I have.
