TnCentral: a Prokaryotic Transposable Element Database

This is a downloadable working copy of our SnapGene custom library (06_24_2024) that we are building for transposon and insertion sequence annotation. It might contain a number of redundancies. It is composed of 'favorites' (fully annotated and verified features) and non-favorited features (included to identify in submitted transposons and plasmids but not robustly annotated).

There are three download options: 1) the SnapGene © .frts file containing both favorited and non-favorited features 2) a single file with a .dna extension containing all our custom features in a concatenated format and 3) a folder containing only the favorited features each with a .dna extension.

1) To install the file with the .frts extension in SnapGene, first extract the downloaded file, and then copy the customCommonFeatures.ftrs file to the SnapGene folder. In Windows, go to the SNAPGENE folder (APPDATA>Roaming>SnapGene : note this may be a hidden folder) copy the file directly into this folder or replace the current .ftrs file if necessary.
NOTE: This method is NOT Recommended by SnapGene.

2) To install the CommonFeatures_xx_yy_20xx.dna file with the corresponding date simply import into the user's preexisting custom features. This contains all our working feature database both favorited and non-favorited. Using this method is probably "safer" and increases the speed of comparisons.

3) If the user does not require the entire database, individual favorited features can also be directly imported into the user's preexisting custom features.

The annotation rules we use here are described in the "For Curators" section on the TnCentral left menu. Please consult this document. In addition, the library entry Name and Note fields contain the name of the first associated element in which we found the library entry. These must be changed to the associated element which is being annotated.

Please quote: Ross K, Varani AM, Snesrud E, Huang H, Alvarenga DO, Zhang J, Wu C, McGann P, Chandler M. TnCentral: a Prokaryotic Transposable Element Database and Web Portal for Transposon Analysis. mBio. 2021 Oct 26;12(5):e0206021. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02060-21. Epub 2021 Sep 14. PMID: 34517763; PMCID: PMC8546635