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. 1995 Mar;51(1):100-13.

Estimation and reliability of molecular sequence alignments

Affiliations
  • PMID: 7766767

Estimation and reliability of molecular sequence alignments

J L Thorne et al. Biometrics. 1995 Mar.

Abstract

The problem of estimating the relatedness of a pair of biological sequences is addressed. A stochastic model of sequence evolution is described that allows insertion and deletion as well as replacement of amino acid residues (or substitution of nucleotides) over time. An expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm that obtains maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters is introduced. The method assumes that the sequences are related by descent from a common ancestor but the alignment (i.e., the precise evolutionary correspondence between residues in each sequence) is unknown. Results from the E-step of the EM algorithm are used to assess the likelihood that any two residues are related by direct descent from a common ancestor.

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