In <lwetzler.2.000FD7DC at acs.bu.edu>, lwetzler at acs.bu.edu (Lee M. Wetzler) writes:
>Any recommendations for plasmid drawing software for the PC, especially for
>windows.
>>Lee
The software you're looking for is "CLONE 4" and "ENHANCE" from Scientific & Educational
Software, P.O. Box 440, State Line, PA 17263, USA; (717) 597-5307. These run under DOS with a
graphic user interface, and will be available soon for Windows. CLONE is a cloning simulation
program: it does all steps of cloning electronically, including making blunt ends, etc. It also
does restriction maps, finds open reading frames, etc. The user interface is intuitive and the
program is robust. I (and all my students) have used it since version 1 and cannot imagine life
without it. CLONE reads the features table from Genbank or EMBL entries and positions those
genes "in" the plasmid. Genes or markers you add are also saved with the sequence, and all
sequence coordinated are recalculated correctly when any cloning manipulations are performed.
CLONE by itself will draw pretty reasonable plasmid maps. For true publication-quality
figures and multiple-plasmid drawings, use ENHANCE, which takes CLONE files and lets you
manipulate all aspects of the images.
The program developer is a Ph.D. molecular biologist who worked on phage lambda (with Noreen
Murray, if I recall), and got into software as a sideline. The programming is really
first-rate, and he is very responsive to user input.
I suggest calling SES and getting a brochure and demo disk. Prices are reasonable for software
of this quality -- about $ 200 to $400 each. Departmental site licenses (unlimited users) are
available for less than the cost of two single user licenses.
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