For the reader's convenience, a user-friendly and publicly accessible web-server named iEsGene-ZCPseKNC has been established, which can identify essential gene for archaea. Here, a step-by-step guide on how to use the webserver to get a desired result without the need to carefully understand the mathematical details.

  Step 1. Open the web-server at http://bliulab.net/iEsGene-ZCPseKNC/ and you will see its top page of iEsGene-ZCPseKNC. Click on the ReadMe button to see a brief introduction about the server.

  Step 2. Type or copy/paste the query sequences into the input box, or you can also directly upload your input data via the Browse button. The input sequence should be in the FASTA format. For the examples of sequences in the FASTA format, click the Example button right above the input box.

  Step 3. Click on the Submit button to see the predicted results. For example, if you use the four query DNA sequences in the Example window as the input, you will see on your computer screen: the 1st and 2nd query sequences are of essential genes but the 3rd and 4th are of non-essential genes. All these results are fully consistent with the experimental observations.