MsatAllele_1.0: An R package to visualize the binning of microsatellite alleles

Abstract

MsatAllele is a computer package built on R to visualize and bin the raw microsatellite allele size distributions. The method is based on the creation of an R database with exported files from the open-source electropherogram peak-reading program STRAND. Contrary to other binning programs, in this program, the bin limits are not fixed and are automatically defined by the data stored in the database. Data manipulation and graphical functions allow to 1) visualize raw allele size variation, allowing the detection of potential scoring errors, strange bin distributions, and unexpected spacing between the bins; 2) bin raw fragment sizes and write bin summary statistics for each locus; and 3) export genotype files with the resulting binned data.