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Effects of sequence alignment procedures on estimates of phylogeny
Author(s) -
Goldman Nick
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(199804)20:4<287::aid-bies4>3.0.co;2-n
Subject(s) - phylogenetics , evolutionary biology , sequence (biology) , biology , variation (astronomy) , multiple sequence alignment , computational biology , genetics , sequence alignment , gene , physics , astrophysics , peptide sequence
Previous debate about statistical variation in inferred phylogenies has focused on procedures for the estimation of evolutionary relationships from aligned sequences. Morrison and Ellis 1 have recently drawn attention to additional variation attributable to the alignment procedure used and have suggested that this may be highly significant. This raises doubts about our ability to infer reliable phylogenies. Although concerns may not be as serious as their analyses at first imply, Morrison and Ellis 1 have performed a useful service in reminding us that accurate sequence alignment is a crucial part of molecular phylogenetics. BioEssays 20 :287‐290, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.