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DNA Sequence Alignment and Critical Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

Dirk Drasdo ,
Terence Hwa  and
Michael Lässig
Dirk Drasdo
Affiliation:
Max-Planck Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, 14513 Teltow, Germany
Terence Hwa
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093–0319
Michael Lässig
Affiliation:
Max-Planck Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, 14513 Teltow, Germany
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Abstract

Alignment algorithms are commonly used to detect and quantify similarities between DNA sequences. We study these algorithms in the framework of a recent theory viewing similarity detection as a geometrical critical phenomenon of directed random walks. We show that the roughness of these random walks governs the fidelity of an alignment, i.e., its ability to capture the correlations between the sequences compared. Criteria for the optimization of alignment algorithms emerge from this theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 463: Symposia EE – Statistical Mechanics in Physics and Biology , 1996 , 75
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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References

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