New Features In MacVector 10.5

Long Filenames/File Extensions

The MacVector file reading and writing code has been completely rewritten to fully support OS X conventions. This means that you can now use long filenames (up to 255 characters) and all files are now given suitable extensions so that they can be stored on cross-platform file systems without losing file type information.

Universal File Reading

While MacVector has always had the ability to open a wide variety of file formats, in the past certain file import functions could only use a subset of the supported file formats. This limitation has been removed. This affects the following functions;

Multiple Sequence Alignment Editor. You can now directly import any valid single or multiple sequence file directly into the editor, ready for alignment by ClustalW. This includes GenBank or EMBL files with multiple entries.

Contig Assembly/Align to Reference. You can now directly import any valid single or multiple sequence file directly into the Contig Assembly Project file, or into the Align to Reference editor. Previously you were restricted to MacVector or Chromatogram files.

Align to Folder. This function will now scan a test sequence against all valid files in a folder. In particular, you can create databases of many sequences in single files in (e.g.) GenBank, EMBL or FastA format and Align to Folder will search the database for matching sequences. For performance reasons, we recommend you limit the size of any individual file to less than 100MB

cDNA Alignments and Splice Site Identification

You can now align cDNA clones against a corresponding genome and MacVector will automatically identify the introns and exons. Actual splice sites at ambiguous junctions are determined using the standard GT..AG intron rule. Once identified you can quickly save each intron or exon as a feature on the parental sequence.

A cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator cDNA clone aligned against the human CFTR genomic locus. The upper graphics represent the exons predicted by MacVector. The lower graphics are the documented exons from NCBI accession number NC_000007.

Combined Preferences

The various global settings in MacVector have now been combined into a single multiple pane Preferences dialog, accessible from the standard OS X Preferences menu item. This simplifies the configuration of many of the default settings allowing you to customize MacVector to your own personal tastes.

The Prefences dialog from MacVector 10.5 with the Annotated Display pane selected.

Toolbar Customization

The OS X style toolbars introduced in MacVector 10.0 are now fully customizable using the standard OS X editor. You can add, remove and rearrange the toolbar buttons so that you have just the icons you regularly use close at hand.

Profile Scans

There is now a simple profile scanning capability built in to the Coding Preference Plot feature, which has been renamed "Nucleic Acid Analysis Toolkit". MacVector reads profile files using the transfac profile format.

Licensing Enhancements

If you have purchased more than one MacVector license, you can now have multiple licenses installed on one machine. If the currently selected license is already in use elsewhere on the network, you can quickly toggle to a different license without needing to re-enter the license details.

MacVector 10.5 lets you switch between installed licenses using a simple popup menu.

Miscellaneous Enhancements

There is a new Text tab in the Contig Assembly and Align to Reference editors. This displays a simple formatted text view of the alignment that can be printed or copied to other applications.

The graphical outputs of the Pustell Matrix analyses, the Protein Analysis Toolkit and the Nucleic Acid Analysis Toolkit (formerly Coding Preference Plot) have been recoded so that they are resized along with the window. This allows the display of large matrices or wide profiles in far greater detail than was possible in MacVector 10.0.

Availability

MacVector 10.5 is now available! Existing customers with valid maintenance contracts can download the new version from this link. Customers with older versions of MacVector or new users should register to download the trial version.