Infectious agents and toxins that are considered by the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) or the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) as having the potential to pose substantial harm or a severe threat to human, animal or plant health or plant products are regulated as “select agents.” The National Select Agent Registry, maintained by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), contains the [http://www.selectagents.gov/Select%20Agents%20and%20Toxins%20List.html Select Agent and Toxins List], a list of the regulated select agents. Our software is designed to identify sequences related to Select Agents and Toxins (SAT). In order to test the efficiency of our program it was necessary to compose a database of Select Agent sequences and non-Select Agent sequences. Select Agent sequences are derived from SAT genes while Non-Select Agent sequences are derived from non-Select Agents and Toxins (NSAT) genes. The database is composed of 81 sequences selected from SAT sequences, by finding genes specific to a SAT and obtaining the nucleotide code from the GenBank database, and 103 NSAT genes from the GenBank database. These 184 sequences form the basic set of sequences which we modify to test our software.

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