VIR - A COMPUTATIONAL TOOL FOR ANALYSIS OF IMMUNOGLOBULIN SEQUENCES

In this paper a microcomputer software named VIR (Variable domains of the Immune Receptors) is reported. This package can be used in sequenc e studies of immunoglobulin variable domains. The main features of the VIR software in the sequences management are: (1) ease of information recovery/extraction from amino acid sequences; and (2) its capability to obtain multiple sequence alignments with predefined characteristic s (i.e. specie and/or specificity). As an analytical tool, the VIR pac kage employs such multiple sequence alignments to compute: (1) tables showing amino acid frequencies; (2) three variability indexes; (3) ide ntity matrices; (4) random samples; and (5) sequences with possible ca nonical structures. Thus the software reported here is proposed as a u seful tool to carry out detailed studies of immunoglobulin variable do mains.