seqphase: a web tool for interconverting phase input/output files and fasta sequence alignments

The program phase is widely used for Bayesian inference of haplotypes from diploid genotypes; however, manually creating phase input files from sequence alignments is an error-prone and time-consuming process, especially when dealing with numerous variable sites and/or individuals. Here, a web tool called seqphase is presented that generates phase input files from fasta sequence alignments and converts phase output files back into fasta. During the production of the phase input file, several consistency checks are performed on the dataset and suitable command line options to be used for the actual phase data analysis are suggested. seqphase was written in perl and is freely accessible over the Internet at the address http://www.mnhn.fr/jfflot/seqphase.