Abstract
Describing human mitochondrial DNA sequences by listing only those sites that differ from an aligned reference sequence is the standard practice for nomenclature. However this different-from-reference description can produce artificial alignments when comparing two non-reference sequences which in some situations may exaggerate the difference between the non-reference sequences-a problem called "jumping alignments." The impact of jumping alignments in database searching and population studies is evaluated. Alternative phylogenetic approaches for sequence alignment are also compared. The data show that a small percentage of jumping alignments occur with a standardized nomenclature system and with a phylogenetic approach, with a nominal impact on false exclusion database searching errors.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 315-316 |
Number of pages | 2 |
Journal | Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2009 |
Keywords
- Alignment
- EMPOP
- Forensic science
- Haplogroup
- Hierarchical bifurcating approach
- Mitochondrial DNA
- Mitotyper
- Mitotyper rules
- Nomenclature
- Phylogenetics
- SWGDAM
- mtDNA sequence database