| crystalball

## Function

Answers every drug discovery question you have about this sequence

## Description

Crystalball is an application invented by Scott Markel and Darryl Leon in their book "Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell". They put the description into Appendix D with the comment:

Here's a program we're working on. When it's finished we plan to donate it to the EMBOSS package. It may take us a while, so be patient

It took just 30 minutes from seeing a draft of Appendix D to sending Scott the ACD file and then the C source code.

Like Scott and Darryl, we put the program into an EMBASSY package called "appendixd" in the hope that nobody takes it too seriously, although we suspect the results are more accurate than one would reasonably be entitled to expect.

## Algorithm

Scott and Darryl defined the ACD interface in the book, together with 3 of the responses.

We added the others in the same spirit.

No attempt is made to change the output when the input sequence changes.

## Usage

Here is a sample session with crystalball

    % crystalball -competition -rdtime -rdcost -animalstudies -clinicaltrials -fdaproblems -fdatime -profit -everythingelse
    Answers every drug discovery question you have about this sequence.
    Input sequence: tembl:hsfau
    Output file [hsfau.crystalball]:

Go to the input files for this example
Go to the output files for this example

## Command line arguments

       Standard (Mandatory) qualifiers:
      [-sequence]          sequence   Sequence USA
      [-outfile]           outfile    Output file name

       Additional (Optional) qualifiers:
       -competition        boolean    Who else is working with this target?
       -rdtime             boolean    Total research and development time to bring
                                      a drug for this target to market.
       -rdcost             boolean    Total cost of our research and development
                                      effort.
       -animalstudies      boolean    What will we learn from the animal studies?
       -clinicaltrials     boolean    Detail all of the surprises we'll get from
                                      the clinical trials.
       -fdaproblems        boolean    List all of the issues the FDA will raise
                                      with our paperwork.
       -fdatime            boolean    How long will the FDA take to render a
                                      decision?
       -profit             boolean    How much will we make after the drug gets to
                                      market?

       Advanced (Unprompted) qualifiers:
       -everythingelse     boolean    Tell us everything else we'd really like to
                                      know now rather than later

       Associated qualifiers:

       "-sequence" associated qualifiers
       -sbegin1            integer    Start of the sequence to be used
       -send1              integer    End of the sequence to be used
       -sreverse1          boolean    Reverse (if DNA)
       -sask1              boolean    Ask for begin/end/reverse
       -snucleotide1       boolean    Sequence is nucleotide
       -sprotein1          boolean    Sequence is protein
       -slower1            boolean    Make lower case
       -supper1            boolean    Make upper case
       -sformat1           string     Input sequence format
       -sdbname1           string     Database name
       -sid1               string     Entryname
       -ufo1               string     UFO features
       -fformat1           string     Features format
       -fopenfile1         string     Features file name

       "-outfile" associated qualifiers
       -odirectory2        string     Output directory

       General qualifiers:
       -auto               boolean    Turn off prompts
       -stdout             boolean    Write standard output
       -filter             boolean    Read standard input, write standard output
       -options            boolean    Prompt for standard and additional values
       -debug              boolean    Write debug output to program.dbg
       -verbose            boolean    Report some/full command line options
       -help               boolean    Report command line options. More
                                      information on associated and general
                                      qualifiers can be found with -help -verbose
       -warning            boolean    Report warnings
       -error              boolean    Report errors
       -fatal              boolean    Report fatal errors
       -die                boolean    Report deaths

Standard (Mandatory) qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
--- | --- | ---
[-sequence] (Parameter 1) | Sequence USA | Readable sequence | Required
[-outfile] (Parameter 2) | Output file name | Output file | <sequence>.crystalball
Additional (Optional) qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
-competition | Who else is working with this target? | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-rdtime | Total research and development time to bring a drug for this target to market. | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-rdcost | Total cost of our research and development effort. | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-animalstudies | What will we learn from the animal studies? | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-clinicaltrials | Detail all of the surprises we'll get from the clinical trials. | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-fdaproblems | List all of the issues the FDA will raise with our paperwork. | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-fdatime | How long will the FDA take to render a decision? | Boolean value Yes/No | No
-profit | How much will we make after the drug gets to market? | Boolean value Yes/No | No
Advanced (Unprompted) qualifiers | Allowed values | Default
-everythingelse | Tell us everything else we'd really like to know now rather than later | Boolean value Yes/No | No

## Input file format

crystalball reads any normal sequence USAs.

### Input files for usage example

'tembl:hsfau' is a sequence entry in the example nucleic acid database 'tembl'

### Database entry: tembl:hsfau

    ID   HSFAU      standard; RNA; HUM; 518 BP.
    XX
    AC   X65923;
    XX
    SV   X65923.1
    XX
    DT   13-MAY-1992 (Rel. 31, Created)
    DT   23-SEP-1993 (Rel. 37, Last updated, Version 10)
    XX
    DE   H.sapiens fau mRNA
    XX
    KW   fau gene.
    XX
    OS   Homo sapiens (human)
    OC   Eukaryota; Metazoa; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Euteleostomi; Mammalia;
    OC   Eutheria; Primates; Catarrhini; Hominidae; Homo.
    XX
    RN   [1]
    RP   1-518
    RA   Michiels L.M.R.;
    RT   ;
    RL   Submitted (29-APR-1992) to the EMBL/GenBank/DDBJ databases.
    RL   L.M.R. Michiels, University of Antwerp, Dept of Biochemistry,
    RL   Universiteisplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk, BELGIUM
    XX
    RN   [2]
    RP   1-518
    RX   MEDLINE; 93368957.
    RA   Michiels L., Van der Rauwelaert E., Van Hasselt F., Kas K., Merregaert J.;
    RT   " fau cDNA encodes a ubiquitin-like-S30 fusion protein and is expressed as
    RT   an antisense sequences in the Finkel-Biskis-Reilly murine sarcoma virus";
    RL   Oncogene 8:2537-2546(1993).
    XX
    DR   SWISS-PROT; P35544; UBIM_HUMAN.
    DR   SWISS-PROT; Q05472; RS30_HUMAN.
    XX
    FH   Key             Location/Qualifiers
    FH
    FT   source          1..518
    FT                   /chromosome="11q"
    FT                   /db_xref="taxon:9606"
    FT                   /organism="Homo sapiens"
    FT                   /tissue_type="placenta"
    FT                   /clone_lib="cDNA"
    FT                   /clone="pUIA 631"
    FT                   /map="13"
    FT   misc_feature    57..278
    FT                   /note="ubiquitin like part"
    FT   CDS             57..458
    FT                   /db_xref="SWISS-PROT:P35544"
    FT                   /db_xref="SWISS-PROT:Q05472"
    FT                   /gene="fau"
    FT                   /protein_id="CAA46716.1"
    FT                   /translation="MQLFVRAQELHTFEVTGQETVAQIKAHVASLEGIAPEDQVVLLAG
    FT                   APLEDEATLGQCGVEALTTLEVAGRMLGGKVHGSLARAGKVRGQTPKVAKQEKKKKKTG
    FT                   RAKRRMQYNRRFVNVVPTFGKKKGPNANS"
    FT   misc_feature    98..102
    FT                   /note="nucleolar localization signal"
    FT   misc_feature    279..458
    FT                   /note="S30 part"
    FT   polyA_signal    484..489
    FT   polyA_site      509
    XX
    SQ   Sequence 518 BP; 125 A; 139 C; 148 G; 106 T; 0 other;
         ttcctctttc tcgactccat cttcgcggta gctgggaccg ccgttcagtc gccaatatgc        60
         agctctttgt ccgcgcccag gagctacaca ccttcgaggt gaccggccag gaaacggtcg       120
         cccagatcaa ggctcatgta gcctcactgg agggcattgc cccggaagat caagtcgtgc       180
         tcctggcagg cgcgcccctg gaggatgagg ccactctggg ccagtgcggg gtggaggccc       240
         tgactaccct ggaagtagca ggccgcatgc ttggaggtaa agttcatggt tccctggccc       300
         gtgctggaaa agtgagaggt cagactccta aggtggccaa acaggagaag aagaagaaga       360
         agacaggtcg ggctaagcgg cggatgcagt acaaccggcg ctttgtcaac gttgtgccca       420
         cctttggcaa gaagaagggc cccaatgcca actcttaagt cttttgtaat tctggctttc       480
         tctaataaaa aagccactta gttcagtcaa aaaaaaaa                               518
    //

## Output file format

crystalball outputs a plain text file with a one-line response to each of the input options.

### Output files for usage example

### File: hsfau.crystalball

    Drug discovery development time: 10-15 years
    Drug discovery development cost: $800 million
    Animal studies results: 'Animals are not like humans'
    Clinical trials surprises: Unfortunately, not another Viagra
    FDA issues: List not yet complete
    FDA time to decision: Waiting .........
    Profit: Not nearly as much as you'd like!
    The competition: Every EMBOSS user now knows as much as you!
    Everything else: Trust me, you really don't want to know just now!

## Data files

## Notes

None.

## References

Markel S and Leon D (2003) "Sequence Analysis in a Nutshell" O'Reilly and Associates Inc. See "Appendix D"

## Warnings

None.

## Diagnostic Error Messages

None.

## Exit status

It always exits with status 0.

## Known bugs

None.

## See also

Program name | Description
--- | ---
myseq | Demonstration of sequence reading

## Author(s)

Peter Rice (pmr © ebi.ac.uk)
Informatics Division, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK

## History

Written (Feb 2003) - Peter Rice.

## Target users

This program is intended to be used by everyone and everything, from naive users to embedded scripts.