If you are looking for some free plasmid manipulation and analysis software, then you need look no further than PlasMa DNA. It’s packed with features, user friendly and looks great. Best of all, it is a cross-platform application – it works on both PC and Mac, and the files produced on one operating system can be opened and used on the other.

Sequence data can be entered by simple cut and paste, or by uploading FASTA files and the maps produced are neat and clear. But, the real power of this application lies in the analysis and manipulation features. Restriction, % GC and ORF analyses, in silico PCR and sequence alignments are all possible. Cloning strategies can also be devised and carried out – either manually or using the automatic cloning strategy suggestion feature. Even Gateway cloning strategies can be implemented which, in the world of molecular biology freeware, is unique to this program as far as I am aware.

The one feature I would like to see, and which I think would make this application more complete, is the ability to upload seqeunces directly from genbank or other databases, but maybe that’s something for the future. This software is the result of the efforts of Alexandre Angers-Loustau, a molecular biologist-come-semi-professional computer programmer. He assures me that more software is in the pipleine, so we can all look forward to that. PlasMap can be downloaded from here.