FIMO Tutorial

What FIMO does

Typical FIMO applications

How FIMO works

FIMO converts each input motif into a log-odds PSSM and uses each PSSM to independently scan each input sequence. It reports all positions in each sequence that match a motif with a statistically significant log-odds score. You can control the match p-value that is considered significant, and whether or not FIMO reports matches on both strands when the sequence alphabet is complementable (e.g., DNA or RNA).

Sequence and Motif Alphabets

FIMO supports DNA, RNA, protein and custom sequence alphabets. The alphabet is specified in the motif file, and the sequences being searched must be compatible with that alphabet. (DNA motifs can be used to search RNA sequences and vice-versa.)

Sequence Database

These sequences should all be in the same sequence alphabet. Their lengths may vary. They can, for example, be a set of promoters thought to be co-regulated, a set of ChIP-seq regions or the proteome of an organism.

FAQ