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  • Current: Sep 17, 2023

Alignment (sequence alignment)

Sequence alignment is a process of aligning two sequences (pairwise sequence alignment) or more sequences (multiple sequence alignment) to maximize the alignment score defined by each algorithm.


Pairwise sequence alignment

Public domain image of pairwise sequence alignment.


Definitions in the literature

  • Pairwise alignment: The process of lining up two sequences to achieve maximal levels of identity (and conservation, in the case of amino acid sequences) for the purpose of assessing the degree of similarity and the possibility of homology [1].
  • [2].