[Biopython-dev] selenocysteines

[Andrew Dalke]

Hey all,

  Just noticed ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/gbrel.txt says:


>  Selenocysteine residues within the protein translations of coding
> region features have been represented in GenBank via the letter 'X'
> and a /transl_except qualifier. At the May 1999 DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank
> collaborative meeting, it was learned that IUPAC plans to adopt the
> letter 'U' for selenocysteine.

Any knowledge on if that has occured.

Also, I noticed the GenBank parsers is using the generic DNA, RNA
and protein alphabets when it looks like it should use the IUPAC
versions.  Even if there are a few places where it fails, it should
be more useful than what there is now.  I'll go ahead and change
it but if there are complaints (Brad? You did that code) I'll change
it back.

                    Andrew