GCVT — A Genome Comparison and Viewing Tool

This paper highlights the features of a simple Genome Comparison and Viewing Tool (GCVT) for comparing bacterial genomes based on their genes, products, GC counts and genome sizes. For selected features from the results of comparison, a facility to perform alignment using the Needleman-Wunsch, Smith - Waterman and ClustalW algorithms is also provided. The software can take as input, genome files in a number of formats namely the Embl, Genbank and Fasta formats. GCVT also provides the facility for visualizing the relationship between chosen features using a guide tree. A number of additional features like the DNA to protein converter amongst many others contribute to ease the tasks of researchers. For the convenience of the users, the software can also take a protein file in the PDB format and display its three-dimensional structure. Compared to existing software like Artemis Comparison Tool (ACT), DNAVis and inGeno, GCVT is much simpler and user-friendly.