BLAST

In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics" title="Bioinformatics" >bioinformatics</a>, BLAST for Basic Local Alignment Search Tool is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm" title="Algorithm" >algorithm</a> for comparing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_structure" class="mw-redirect" title="Primary structure" >primary</a> biological sequence information, such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid" title="Amino acid" >amino-acid</a> sequences of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein" title="Protein" >proteins</a> or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleotide" title="Nucleotide" >nucleotides</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequence" class="mw-redirect" title="DNA sequence" >DNA sequences</a>. A BLAST search enables a researcher to compare a query sequence with a library or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database" title="Database" >database</a> of sequences, and identify library sequences that resemble the query sequence above a certain threshold.

Different types of BLASTs are available according to the query sequences. For example, following the discovery of a previously unknown gene in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus_musculus" class="mw-redirect" title="Mus musculus" >mouse</a>, a scientist will typically perform a BLAST search of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome" title="Human genome" >human genome</a> to see if humans carry a similar gene; BLAST will identify sequences in the human genome that resemble the mouse gene based on similarity of sequence. The BLAST algorithm and program were designed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Altschul" title="Stephen Altschul" >Stephen Altschul</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Gish" title="Warren Gish" >Warren Gish</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webb_Miller" title="Webb Miller" >Webb Miller</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Myers" title="Eugene Myers" >Eugene Myers</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Lipman" title="David J. Lipman" >David J. Lipman</a> at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health" title="National Institutes of Health" >National Institutes of Health</a> and was published in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Molecular_Biology" title="Journal of Molecular Biology" >Journal of Molecular Biology</a> in 1990 and cited over 50,000 times.

BLAST

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