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SnapGene

Description

SnapGene is a point and click proprietary software program used for designing and documenting molecular biology experiments. SnapGene is a multipurpose software program used for, but not limited to, the following:

  • DNA sequence alignment, annotation, editing, and visualization

    • Validate constructs with sequence alignments

    • Sanger sequence assembly

  • PCR simulation, primer design, gel simulation

  • Cloning and related methods

  • View plasmid features and customize maps

  • Protein visualization

Key Software Features

The following material is from SnapGene:

  • SnapGene makes your DNA manipulations easy to visualize and simulate, and alerts you to errors before they happen.

  • Every DNA manipulation in SnapGene is automatically recorded, so you can see exactly what you did and retrieve the sequences of ancestral constructs.

  • SnapGene’s .dna files can be opened by the free cross-platform SnapGene Viewer, enabling you to share richly annotated maps and sequences with colleagues.

  • SnapGene automatically generates a record of every sequence edit and cloning procedure, so you won’t lose track of how a construct was made, even after a lab member leaves.

  • SnapGene supports a host of file formats.

Recommendations

For the full spectrum of features available through SnapGene, click here.

Things to Know

  • Can import directly from NCBI, UniProt, and Ensembl using accession information
  • Can be used with an extensive range of file types
  • SnapGene Viewer is free allowing files to be easily viewed by collaborators
  • Provides visualizations such as vector maps
  • Provenance tracking
  • Not recommended for high throughput sequence data.

Input Data

SnapGene can read alignment files from Clustal, GDE, MSF, NEXUS, PHYLIP, PIR, Selex, Stockholm.

In addition, SnapGene can read files from the following programs: ApE (.ape), CLC (.clc), Clone Manager, DNA Strider, DNADynamo (.cow), DNASIS (.dnasis), DNAssist (.seq), DNASTAR Lasergene (.seq, .sbd), DS Gene (.nas_bsml, .aas_bsm), EMBL format, EnzymeX (.exdna), Genbank and DDBJ files, Gene Construction Kit (.gcc), Geneious (.geneious), GeneTool (.bti), Genome Compiler (.gcproj), Jellyfish (.xml), MacVector (.nucl), pDRAW32 (.PDW), Sequencher (.spf), Serial Cloner (.xdna), Swiss-Prot sequence format, Vector NTI, and Visual Cloning (.vcd).

See more information here.

Output Data

Supported output formats include DDBJ, EMBL, FASTA, GenBank - SnapGene, GenBank - Standard, GenBank - Vector NTI, GenPept - SnapGene, GenPept - Standard, Plain Text, SnapGene DNA, and SnapGene Protein.

Access Information

You must submit a request through [service.cancer.gov] (https://service.cancer.gov/SnapGene) to obtain access to SnapGene.

Getting Help

The SnapGene documentation is extensive. A number of tutorial videos and user guides are readily available from the SnapGene website. Additionally, SnapGene has a new video learning center, SnapGene Academy, which includes video tutorials on molecular biology concepts, theories, methods, and tools.