Estimation of evolutionary distance between nucleotide sequences |
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Authors: | F Tajima M Nei |
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Institution: | Center for Demographic and Population Genetics, University of Texas, Houston 77225. |
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Abstract: | A mathematical formula for estimating the average number of nucleotide
substitutions per site (delta) between two homologous DNA sequences is
developed by taking into account unequal rates of substitution among
different nucleotide pairs. Although this formula is obtained for the
equal-input model of nucleotide substitution, computer simulations have
shown that it gives a reasonably good estimate for a wide range of
nucleotide substitution patterns as long as delta is equal to or smaller
than 1. Furthermore, the frequency of cases to which the formula is
inapplicable is much lower than that for other similar methods recently
proposed. This point is illustrated using insulin genes. A statistical
method for estimating the number of nucleotide changes due to deletion and
insertion is also developed. Application of this method to globin gene data
indicates that the number of nucleotide changes per site increases with
evolutionary time but the pattern of the increase is quite irregular.
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