Tensor decomposition reveals concurrent evolutionary convergences and divergences and correlations with structural motifs in ribosomal RNA.

ABSTRACT: Evolutionary relationships among organisms are commonly described by using a hierarchy derived from comparisons of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequences. We propose that even on the level of a single rRNA molecule, an organism's evolution is composed of multiple pathways due to concurrent forces that act independently upon different rRNA degrees of freedom. Relationships among organisms are then compositions of coexisting pathway-dependent similarities and dissimilarities, which cannot be described by a single hierarchy. We computationally test this hypothesis in comparative analyses of 16S and 23S rRNA sequence alignments by using a tensor decomposition, i.e., a framework for modeling composite data. Each alignment is encoded in a cuboid, i.e., a third-order tensor, where nucleotides, positions

SUBMITTER: Muralidhara C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3094155 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature