Table 2

Comparison of native formats and their HOBIT XML counterparts

Sequence formats



FASTA
SequenceML
simple sequence information for nucleic and amino acids
GCG
SequenceAnnotationML
sequence information with additional facilities for annotations
STADEN



Sequence alignment formats

FASTA
AlignmentML
(multiple) alignments for nucleic and amino acids
CLUSTAL


MSF



RNA secondary structure formats

mFOLD
RNAStructML
RNA secondary structure information
Vienna style DotBracket



RNA Secondary Structure Alignment Formats

aligned Vienna style DotBracket
RNAStructAlignmentML
(multiple) alignments of RNA secondary structures

The table shows a comparison of some native bioinformatic file formats (first column) and their HOBIT XML counterparts (second column). These XML formats cover sequence, alignment, RNA secondary structure and RNA secondary structure alignment formats in a form that is independent of any specific program. The usage of the XML formats leads to a significant decrease in the number of necessary file formats.

Seibel et al. BMC Bioinformatics 2006 7:490   doi:10.1186/1471-2105-7-490