Guidelines for systematic reporting of sequence alignments

Bioinformatics methods are increasingly needed and used to analyze and interpret extensive datasets many of which are produced by diverse high-throughput technologies. Unfortunately, it is quite common that published articles do not contain sufficient information to allow the reader to fully comprehend and repeat computational and other studies. Guidelines were developed for reporting studies and results from sequence alignment. Brief and concise checklist of required data items was compiled making it easy to provide necessary details. Implementation of the guidelines requires similar meticulous attitude toward details as other parts of publications. If the journal does not allow reporting full details in the main article, it can be provided in supplementary material. It is important to make the alignments available. Systematic and detailed description of bioinformatics analyses adds to the value of papers and makes it easier for the scientific community to evaluate, understand, verify, and extend the published articles and their results.