A probabilistic treatment of phylogeny and sequence alignment

J Mol Evol. 1999 Jul;49(1):11-22. doi: 10.1007/pl00006524.

Abstract

Carrying out simultaneous tree-building and alignment of sequence data is a difficult computational task, and the methods currently available are either limited to a few sequences or restricted to highly simplified models of alignment and phylogeny. A method is given here for overcoming these limitations by Bayesian sampling of trees and alignments simultaneously. The method uses a standard substitution matrix model for residues together with a hidden Markov model structure that allows affine gap penalties. It escapes the heavy computational burdens of other models by using an approximation called the "*" rule, which replaces missing data by a sum over all possible values of variables. The behavior of the model is demonstrated on test sets of globins.

MeSH terms

  • Bayes Theorem
  • DNA Transposable Elements
  • Evolution, Molecular*
  • Markov Chains
  • Models, Genetic*
  • Phylogeny*
  • Probability
  • Selection Bias
  • Sequence Alignment / methods*
  • Sequence Deletion

Substances

  • DNA Transposable Elements