Cluster Locator, online analysis and visualization of gene clustering.

Abstract

Genes sharing functions, expression patterns or quantitative traits are not randomly distributed along eukaryotic genomes. In order to study the distribution of genes that share a given feature, we present Cluster Locator, an online analysis and visualization tool. Cluster Locator determines the number, size and position of all the clusters formed by the protein-coding genes on a list according to a given maximum gap, the percentage of gene clustering of the list and its statistical significance. The output includes a visual representation of the distribution of genes and gene clusters along the reference genome. Cluster Locator is freely available at http://clusterlocator.bnd.edu.uy/. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.