STAR - an algorithm to Search for Tandem Approximate Repeats.

Delgrange O. and Rivals E. Bioinformatics. 2004 20:2812-2820.

Please cite THIS paper if you use STAR.

Overview

The program STAR searches for significant Approximate Tandem Repeats (ATR) of a given motif in a DNA sequence. For each region of the sequence that is similar to a tandem repeat of the input motif, STAR returns a description of the segment that it calls a "Zone", and an optimal alignment of the zone with the best possible Exact Tandem Repeat. (Here, exact means perfect.) STAR optimally detects all such zones in the sequence. Significance is assessed by a measure of local compressibility of the segment.
STAR has two interfaces:

The online interface

It is a web form that you fill with your values for the program options, your name, the country where you are and your email; then click on the "Execute & email results" button to run the program with your settings; after a while you will receive your results at the email address that you provided.

Screenshot
STAR online interface

For a quick start, simply select the "Example" radio button, type your name, country where you are and email and click the "Execute & email results" button. This will run the program on example values for its options.

The command-line interface

Download the binary files and execute STAR by typing a command line with the following syntax:
star -i SequenceFile -m Motif | -M MotifFile [-na -po PositionOffset -help]

Options

All the options are the same for both the on-line and the command-line interfaces.