💡 Quick Summary
Translation Map accepts a DNA sequence and returns a textual map displaying protein translations above the sense strand and the complementary strand below. The reading frame can be set to 1, 2, 3, all three simultaneously, or uppercase-only for exon/intron sequences. Supports the full IUPAC alphabet and multiple genetic codes.
📋 How to Use
- Paste a raw DNA sequence or one or more FASTA sequences into the textarea. Input limit: 500,000,000 characters.
- Set bases per line — how many bases to display on each row (30, 45, 60, 75, 90, or 105).
- Choose a reading frame: All three shows frames 1, 2, and 3 simultaneously above the sequence; Frame 1/2/3 shows only the selected frame; Uppercase only translates only uppercase runs (useful for GenBank exon/intron sequences where exons are uppercase and introns are lowercase).
- Select the genetic code used for translation (default: Standard).
- Click Run. Each amino acid is printed at the position of the first base of its codon. Stop codons appear as
*. Use Copy to copy the plain-text output.
🧮 Formulas & Logic
📊 Result Interpretation
Amino acid single-letter codes appear at the first base of each codon. Gaps (spaces) fill the other two codon positions.
An asterisk marks a stop codon (UAA, UAG, or UGA in the standard code). Open reading frames end at stops.
The middle row shows the input sequence left to right, 5′ to 3′.
The row of numbers between the sense and antisense strands shows the absolute 1-based position every 10 bases.
The bottom row shows the complementary strand written 3′ to 5′ beneath the sense strand.
X appears for any codon that does not match the selected genetic code (e.g. degenerate IUPAC bases that span multiple possible amino acids).
🔬 Applications
- Visualising all three reading frames of a gene or coding sequence simultaneously
- Locating open reading frames by spotting runs of amino acids between stop codons
- Checking the reading frame around a cloning site or insertion point
- Translating exon-only regions of a mixed-case GenBank feature-extracted sequence
- Generating annotated translation figures for publications or lab notebooks
⚠️ Common Mistakes & Warnings
Numbers, spaces, and non-letter characters are removed before translation. Only IUPAC nucleotide letters are retained.
The "All three" option shows frames 1, 2, and 3 on the sense (input) strand only. To find ORFs on the reverse strand, first reverse-complement the sequence.
The "Uppercase only" reading frame is only useful when your sequence contains a mixture of uppercase (exon) and lowercase (intron) letters, as exported by tools like GenBank Feature Extractor.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find open reading frames in the output?
*) in any of the three translation rows. Long gaps between stops in the same row indicate potential ORFs. For a dedicated ORF finder with length filtering, use the ORF Finder tool.