Homology-independent metrics for comparative genomics.

ABSTRACT: A mainstream procedure to analyze the wealth of genomic data available nowadays is the detection of homologous regions shared across genomes, followed by the extraction of biological information from the patterns of conservation and variation observed in such regions. Although of pivotal importance, comparative genomic procedures that rely on homology inference are obviously not applicable if no homologous regions are detectable. This fact excludes a considerable portion of "genomic dark matter" with no significant similarity - and, consequently, no inferred homology to any other known sequence - from several downstream comparative genomic methods. In this review we compile several sequence metrics that do not rely on homology inference and can be used to compare nucleotide sequences and e

SUBMITTER: Coutinho TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4446528 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature