COMPUTER-AIDED VIRUS IDENTIFICATION ON THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB

An attempt has been made to devise computer software that will aid vir ologists to identify unknown virus isolates using the World Wide Web. Computerized information from the Animal Virus Information System was used to obtain data on various characters of a virus species. Sequence data banks are used to obtain the molecular data. A probabilistic met hod of virus identification based on Willcox's implementation of Bayes ' theorem is implemented. The program provides hints to the users to c arry out additional tests required to obtain higher confidence in iden tification of virus species. Signature peptides of the virus can also be used to confirm identification. The software is implemented on a UN IX machine and is written in C, UNIX shell scripts and HTML to run on the World Wide Web. This is the first species identification software that allows the user to carry out identification online through Intern et. [see http: / /bioinfo. ernet. in/www/prob.html].