FAST: Fast annotation with synchronized threads

FAST is a multi-threaded, I/O optimized Seed-and-Extend alignment program. FAST is extensible to nucleotide sequences making it comparable to both BLASTn and BLASTp, and also features several new usage flags reporting only HSPs meeting user defined e-value cut-offs. FASTs threaded database construction allows fast, low memory database construction e.g., RefSeq (9.4GB) can be indexed in under 5 minutes using 20 threads. The threaded database construction gives users the ability to create custom databases on demand which is useful for tasks requiring self-alignment, such as network construction [30]. Finally, FAST supports incremental database construction enabling users to keep their databases up-to-date by adding sequences without suffering the cost of reformatting the entire database. The FAST source is freely available through GitHub https:// github.com/hallamlab/FAST and test datasets can be found on Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xvvavweuzgqybc4/ AAAWCrRnol67ZsXi2qLQWUuOa?