GCPReg package for registration of the segmentation gene expression data in Drosophila

In modern functional genomics registration techniques are used to construct reference gene expression patterns and create a spatiotemporal atlas of the expression of all the genes in a network. In this paper we present a software package called GCPReg, which can be used to register the expression patterns of segmentation genes in the early Drosophila embryo. The key task which this package performs is the extraction of spatially localized characteristic features of expression patterns. To facilitate this task, we have developed an easy-to-use interactive graphical interface. We describe GCPReg usage and demonstrate how this package can be applied to register gene expression patterns in wild-type and mutants. GCPReg has been designed to operate on a UNIX platform and is freely available via the Internet at http://urchin.spbcas.ru/downloads/GCPReg/GCPReg.htm.