GelClust: A software tool for gel electrophoresis images analysis and dendrogram generation

This paper presents GelClust, a new software that is designed for processing gel electrophoresis images and generating the corresponding phylogenetic trees. Unlike the most of commercial and non-commercial related softwares, we found that GelClust is very user-friendly and guides the user from image toward dendrogram through seven simple steps. Furthermore, the software, which is implemented in C# programming language under Windows operating system, is more accurate than similar software regarding image processing and is the only software able to detect and correct gel ‘smile’ effects completely automatically. These claims are supported with experiments.