What is sequence alignment?
Sequence alignment is the first step of the bioinformatics approach to trace the molecular phylogeny of an unknown sequence which is usually aligned with sequence databases to predict common regions. The residues in those regions performing structural and functional roles tend to be preserved by natural selection in the course of evolution.
The optimum alignment aligns the sequences with a maximum number of matching residues (identical or similar). This arrangement may introduce few gaps in the alignment indicating loss or gain of a residue (INDELS) leading to the evolutionary insertions, deletions, translocation, and insertion events¹.
Two comparative studies are discussed below to show “why sequence comparison analysis is crucial for identifying new information based on genomic sequence”.
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