Introduction

Burrows-Wheeler Aligner (BWA) is a software package for mapping low-divergent sequences against a large reference genome, such as the human genome. It consists of three algorithms: BWA-backtrack, BWA-SW, and BWA-MEM. The first algorithm is designed for Illumina sequence reads up to 100 bp. The rest two are for longer sequences ranged from 70 bp to 1 Mbp. BWA-MEM and BWA-SW share similar features, such as long-read support and split alignment. However, BWA-MEM is generally recommended for high-quality queries as it is faster and more accurate. Compared with BWA-backtrack, BWA-MEM has better performance in 70–100 bp Illumina reads.

For more information, visit the official BWA website.

Programming language: C

Brief description: gene comparison

Open source license: GPL 3.0