PERFILS: a program for the quantitative treatment of footprinting data.

PERFILS, a computer program written in Borland TurboPascal, performs quantitative analysis of footprinting experiments using any IBM PC or compatible microcomputer. The program uses the height of the bands obtained from densitometric scanning of footprinting autoradiographs to calculate a differential cleavage plot. Such a plot displays, on a logarithmic scale, the difference of susceptibility of a DNA fragment to DNase I, or any other cleaving agent, in the presence of any ligand versus the sequence. PERFILS calculates the fractional cleavage values for control and ligand, giving a table of values for each internucleotidic bond and rendering the differential cleavage plot in only a few seconds.