MEGA, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis

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Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis
300px
Version 5 (2011)
Original author(s) Koichiro Tamura, Daniel Peterson, Nicholas Peterson, Glen Stecher, Masatoshi Nei, Sudhir Kumar
Stable release v7.0.14
Operating system Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Type Bioinformatics
License Freeware
Website www.megasoftware.net

MEGA, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis, is a freely available software for conducting statistical analysis of molecular evolution and for constructing phylogenetic trees. The project for developing this software was initiated by the leadership of Masatoshi Nei in his laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University in collaboration with his graduate student Sudhir Kumar and postdoctoral fellow Koichiro Tamura.[1] Nei wrote a monograph (pp. 130) outlining the scope of the software and presenting new statistical methods that were included in MEGA. The entire set of computer programs was written by Kumar and Tamura. Because the personal computers at that time did not have the capability of sending the monograph and the software electronically, they were delivered by postal mail. From the beginning, MEGA was intended to be an easy-to-use software and include solid statistical methods only.

MEGA version 2 (MEGA2), which was coauthored by an additional investigator Ingrid Jakobson, was released in 2001.[2] All the computer programs and the readme files of this version could be sent electronically because of the advancement of computer technology. Around this time, the leadership of the MEGA project was taken over by Kumar (now at Arizona State University) and Tamura (now at Tokyo Metropolitan University). The monograph “Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis” was often used as a textbook for new ways of studying molecular evolution.

MEGA has been updated and expanded several times (release history), and currently all these versions are available from the MEGA home page (www.megasoftware.net). The method is widely used and cited (5th version has been cited over 25,000 times in 4 years).[3]

Release History

Major MEGA Versions[4]
Version Release Date
1.0 1993 [1]
1.1 1994 [5]
2.0 2000 [2]
2.1 2001 [2]
3.0 2004 [6]
4.0 2006 [7]
4.1 2008 [7]
5.0 2011 [8]
5.1 Oct 2012 [8]
5.2 April 2013 [8]
6.0 December 2013 [3]
7.0 January 2016 [9]

Features

Sequence Alignment Construction

  • Alignment Editor
  • Multiple Sequence Alignment
  • Sequencer (Trace) File Editor/Viewer
  • Integrated Web Browser and Sequence Fetching

Data Handling

  • Handling Ambiguous States (R,Y,T, etc.)
  • Extended MEGA Format to Save All Data Attributes
  • Importing Data From Other Formats (Clustal/Nexus/etc.)
  • Data Explorers
  • Visual Specification of Domains/Groups

Genetic Code Table Section

  • Add/Edit User Defined Tables
  • Computation of Statistical Attributes of a Code Table
  • Inclusion of All Known Code Tables

Real-Time Caption Expert Engine

  • Generate Captions for Distance Matrices, Phylogenies, Tests, Alignments.
  • Copy Captions to External Programs

Integrated Text File Editor

  • Columnar Block Selection/Editing
  • Line Numbers
  • Utilities to Format Sequences/Reverse Complement etc.

Sequence Data Viewer

  • Data Export
  • Highlighting
  • Statistical Quantities Estimation

MCL-based Estimation of Nucleotide Substitution Patterns

  • 4x4 Rate Matrix
  • Transition/Transversion Rate Ratios (k1, k2)
  • Transition/Transversion Rate Bias (R)

Substitution Pattern Homogeneity Test

  • Composition Distance
  • Disparity Index
  • Monte-Carlo Test

Distance Estimation Methods

  • Nucleotide-by-Nucleotide
  • Synonymous/Nonsynonymous (Codon-by-Codon)
  • Protein Distance
  • Distance Calculations
  • Sequence Diversity Calculations
  • Variance Calculations

Tests of Selection

  • Large Sample Z-Test
  • Fisher’s Exact Test
  • Tajima’s Test of Neutrality

Molecular Clock Test

  • Tajima’s Relative Rate Test

Tree-Making Methods

  • Neighbor-Joining
  • Minimum Evolution Method
  • UPGMA
  • Maximum Parsimony
  • Bootstrap Test of Phylogeny
  • Confidence Probability Test
  • Distance Matrix Viewer

Tree Explorers

  • Phylogeny Display
  • Divergence Time Estimation
  • Tree Editing
  • Change Tree Size
  • Multiple Tree Display

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Kumar, S., K. Tamura, and M. Nei (1993) MEGA: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis. Ver. 1.0, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Kumar, S., K. Tamura, I. B. Jakobsen, and M. Nei (2001) MEGA2 : Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis. Ver. 2.0, Bioinformatics 17:1244-1245.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A., Kumar, S. (2013) MEGA6: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis Version 6.0. Mol. Biol. Evol. 30:2725-2729.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Kumar, S., K. Tamura, and M. Nei (1994) MEGA: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software for microcomputers. CABIOS 10:189-191.
  6. ↑ Kumar, S., Tamura, K., and Nei, M. (2004) MEGA3: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis. Brief. Bioinformatics 5:150-163.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Tamura, K., Dudley, J., Nei, M., Kumar, S. (2007) MEGA4 : Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis. Mol. Biol. Evol. 24(8):1596-1599.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., Stecher, G., Nei, M., Kumar, S. (2011) MEGA5 : Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis using Maximum Likelihood, Evolutionary Distance, and Maximum Parsimony Methods. Mol. Biol. Evol. 28:2731-2739.
  9. ↑ Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A., Kumar, S. (2016) MEGA7: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis Version 7.0. Mol. Biol. Evol. submitted.
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