CaptureProbe: a java tool for designing probes for capture Hi-C applications

Many functional elements associated with traits and diseases are located in non-coding regions and act on distant target genes via chromatin looping and folding, making it difficult for scientists to reveal the genetic regulatory mechanisms. Capture Hi-C is a newly developed chromosome conformation capture technology based on hybridization capture between probes and target genomic regions. It can identify interactions among target loci and all other loci in a genome with low cost and high resolution. Here, we developed CaptureProbe, a user-friendly, graphical Java tool for the design of capture probes across a range of target sites or regions. Numerous parameters helped to achieve and optimize the designed probes. Design testing of CaptureProbe showed high efficiency in the design success ratio of target loci and probe specificity. Hence, this program will help scientists conduct genome spatial interaction research. CaptureProbe and source code are available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/captureprobe/.