TREECON

TREECON is a software package developed primarily for the construction and drawing of phylogenetic trees based on evolutionary distances computed from nucleic and amino acid sequences.

In distance methods, the evolutionary distance is computed for all pairs of sequences and a phylogenetic tree is inferred by considering the relationship between these distance values. Different algorithms are available to construct a phylogenetic tree starting from these evolutionary distances and a number of them are implemented in TREECON.

In estimating the evolutionary distances between sequences it is preferable to correct for superimposed mutations and several equations for this are implemented in the software package described. Programs for rooting the unrooted evolutionary trees, for drawing the tree on the screen, and for saving the tree are also included, as well as several other tools.

TREECON is simple to use and prior knowledge about computers is restricted to an absolute minimum. The package should be particularly suited for molecular biologists and evolutionists who want to build evolutionary trees based on their own molecular data.

Starting from a simple ASCII text file, containing nucleic or amino acid sequences with gaps required for mutual alignment, one can produce publishable trees in a user-friendly and straightforward way.

Get TREECON and give it a try to see just how useful it can actually be for you!

NOTE: Free for academic use only.