GLOOME: gain loss mapping engine.

Abstract

The evolutionary analysis of presence and absence profiles (phyletic patterns) is widely used in biology. It is assumed that the observed phyletic pattern is the result of gain and loss dynamics along a phylogenetic tree. Examples of characters that are represented by phyletic patterns include restriction sites, gene families, introns and indels, to name a few. Here, we present a user-friendly web server that accurately infers branch-specific and site-specific gain and loss events. The novel inference methodology is based on a stochastic mapping approach utilizing models that reliably capture the underlying evolutionary processes. A variety of features are available including the ability to analyze the data with various evolutionary models, to infer gain and loss events using either stochastic mapping or maximum parsimony, and to estimate gain and loss rates for each character analyzed. Freely available for use at http://gloome.tau.ac.il/.