GSP: A Web-Based Platform for Designing Genome-Specific Primers in Polyploids

The sequences among subgenomes in a polyploid species have high similarity, making it difficult to design genome-specific primers for sequence analysis. We present GSP, a web-based platform to design genome-specific primers that distinguish subgenome sequences in a polyploid genome. GSP uses BLAST to extract homeologous sequences of the subgenomes in existing databases, performs a multiple sequence alignment, and design primers based on sequence variants in the alignment. An interactive primers diagram, a sequence alignment viewer, and a virtual electrophoresis image are displayed as parts of the primer design result. GSP also designs specific primers from multiple sequences uploaded by users. GSP is a user-friendly and efficient web platform freely accessible at http://probes.pw.usda.gov/GSP.