In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. Aligned sequences of nucleotide or amino acid residues are typically represented as rows within a matrix. Gaps are inserted between the residues so that identical or similar characters are aligned in successive columns.
Sequence alignments are also used for non-biological sequences, such as those present in natural language or in financial data.
Read more about Sequence Alignment: Interpretation, Alignment Methods, Representations, Global and Local Alignments, Pairwise Alignment, Multiple Sequence Alignment, Structural Alignment, Phylogenetic Analysis, Other Biological Uses, Non-biological Uses, Software
Famous quotes containing the word sequence:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)