REvolver: Modeling sequence evolution under domain constraints

Introduction:

REvolver is a program to simulate protein sequence evolution. REvolver automatically integrates domain information described by a profile Hidden Markov Model (pHMM) into the simulation. In the simulation of protein evolution it often had been assumed that sites evolve identically and independently from each other. This simplification is necessary since information concerning site specific evolution is frequently unavailable. However, homologous sequences and domains have been collected, aligned, and pHMMs built. The pHMM describes the variability and shared characteristics of sequences that share a common ancestor. Here we do have knowledge about what sites are conserved, at what positions in the sequences insertions are more likely, or what sites can be deleted. Pfam (Finn et al., 2010) and SMART (Letunic, Doerks and Bork, 2009) are examples for databases providing such data. REvolver is the first method, for simulating protein sequence evolution that integrates this pre-existing information about evolution in an automatic fashion. REvolver

Methods:

The method is described in the following article:
  • Tina Koestler, Arndt von Haeseler, and Ingo Ebersberger (2012) REvolver: Modeling sequence evolution under domain constraints. Mol Biol Evol (DOI: 10.1093/molbev/mss078, PMID: 2383532), accepted.

External programs required:

REvolver is written in java, thus you need to have java 6 installed. The HMMER3 software package (HMMER3) has to be installed. Please note, hmmscan need to be run with the option --notextw. Please download any pHMM database you want to use for REvolver simulations (e.g. Pfam, or SMART).

Version history:

  • August 2011: The first version of REvolver was released.
  • February 2012: Manuscript was accepted for publication in MBE

Note:

Please read the manual carefully if you try our program the first time. If you encounter bugs, please report to tina.koestler(AT)univie.ac.at.

Download:

Type Links (tar.gz) Links (zip)
Manual REvolver_manual.pdf
Jar File REvolver.jar
Example data examples.tar.gz examples.zip
xml schema schema.txt
All REvolver_all.tar.gz REvolver_all.zip

The source code is available upon request.