Exonerate: a generic tool for sequence alignment Exonerate is a generic tool for pairwise sequence comparison. It allows you to align sequences using a many alignment models, either exhaustive dynamic programming or a variety of heuristics. The Exonerate package comes with a selection of utilities for performing simple manipulations quickly on fasta files beyond 2Gb. Many of the algorithms in exonerate are described in: Slater GS and Birney E (2005) Automated generation of heuristics for biological sequence comparison. BMC Bioinformatics 6:31; doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-6-31