Information about Sequence

Statistics about an opened sequence can be found on the Statistics tab of the Options Panel. When a region is selected in the sequence, the statistics is interactively re-calculated for this region only. The following information is available:

• Common statistics (length, molecular weight, etc.) - see the detailed description below
• Characters occurrence
• Dinucleotides occurrence - available for nucleotide sequences only

Note that all data, displayed on the Statistics tab, can be selected with the mouse and copied. Use the copy item in the context menu or a shortcut - Ctrl+C on Windows or Linux, Cmd+C on macOS.

Nucleotide sequence common statistics

The following common statistical information is calculated for a nucleotide sequence:

• Length
• GC content
• Molecular weight
• Extinction coefficient
• Melting temperature
• nmole/OD260
• μg/OD260

GC content

TODO: add description/meaning?

The percentage of guanine (G) and cytosine (C) bases in within the sequence or its selected region, for example:

If the sequence contains degenerate base characters, average values are used, for example:

In this example "1/2" is used for "N" (any nucleotide), "2/3" us used for "B" (that means "C", "G", or "T" according to the IUPAC notation nucleotide code).

Molecular weight

TODO: add description/meaning?

Molecular weight for a single-stranded molecule is calculated as the a sum of the atomic masses of the molecule compounds:

Here "nA", "nT", "nC", "nG", "nU" denote the number of the corresponding nucleotide in the molecule, "n" is the number of all bases (61.97 is the weight of an internal phosphate).

Note that for degenerate base characters average value of nucleotide weight is used, for example, if the sequence also contain "Y" characters (that is "C" or "T"), the sum will include one more summand - "nY*(242.23 + 227.22)/2".

Molecular weight for a double-stranded molecule is calculated as the sum of the single strands molecular weights.

Extinction coefficient

TODO: add description/meaning? I think, it's OK for now

To calculate the Extinction coefficient (Molar extinction coefficient), an approach proposed by Richard Owczarzy is used: http://www.owczarzy.net/extinctionDNA.htm. That is for a single-stranded molecule:

TODO: should the table below be simplified? Don't think, if it's necessary

The table below specified the extinction coefficients for dinucleotides and mononulceotides:

For example, let's calculate the molar extinction coefficient ("ε") for "ATGCA":

As for the other statistics, average values are used in case of degenerate base characters.

Extinction coefficient for a double-stranded molecule is calculated as a sum of the extinction coefficients of the two single strands (e_s1 + e_s2) multiplied by coefficient of (1 - hypochromicity h_260nm). The hypochromicity effect can be taken into account as follows:

h_260nm = (0.287f_AT + 0.059f_GC), where f_AT and f_GC are fractions of AT and GC base pairs, respectively.

Melting temperature

The melting temperature is calculated as follows. For sequences of length 15 or longer:

For shorter sequences:

Here "nA", "nT", "nC", "nG" denote the number of the corresponding nucleotide.

nmole/OD260

TODO: add description/meaning? DONE

The amount of DNA of RNA represented in nanomoles per 1 unit of absorbance at 260 nm dissolved in 1 ml cuvette with 1 cm pathlength

nmole/OD260 = 1000000 / molarExtCoef

μg/OD₂₆₀

TODO: add description/meaning? DONE

The amount of DNA of RNA represented in microgrames

μg/OD260 = nmoleOD260 * molarWeight * 0.001;

Amino acid sequence common statistics

The following common statistical information is calculated for an amino acid sequence:

• Length
• Molecular weight 
• Isoelectic point