PrimerProspector: de novo design and taxonomic analysis of barcoded polymerase chain reaction primers

MOTIVATION: PCR amplification of DNA is a key preliminary step in many applications of high-throughput sequencing technologies, yet design of novel barcoded primers and taxonomic analysis of novel or existing primers remains a challenging task. RESULTS: PrimerProspector is an open-source software package that allows researchers to develop new primers from collections of sequences and to evaluate existing primers in the context of taxonomic data. AVAILABILITY: PrimerProspector is open-source software available at http://pprospector.sourceforge.net CONTACT: rob.knight@colorado.edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.