Measuring the accuracy of genome-size multiple alignments

Genome Biol. 2007;8(6):R124. doi: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-6-r124.

Abstract

Whole-genome alignments are invaluable for comparative genomics. Before doing any comparative analysis on a region of interest, one must have confidence in that region's alignment. We provide a methodology to measure the accuracy of arbitrary regions of these alignments, and apply it to the UCSC Genome Browser's 17-vertebrate alignment. We identify 9.7% (21 Mbp) of the human chromosome 1 alignment as suspiciously aligned. We present independent evidence that many of these suspicious regions represent misalignments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Base Sequence
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 1
  • Genome*
  • Humans
  • Sequence Alignment / methods*
  • Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid*
  • Software