BLAST
BLAST is the abbreviation for Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. It can be accessed via the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnological Information) website. BLAST is one of the most widely used bioinformatics tools because it helps researchers efficiently compare a query oligonucleotide or protein sequence to large databases. Genes that share the highest homology with the input sequence are identified, and thereby, the biological function of the query gene is deduced.
Figure 1: BLAST sequence input window.