CLUSTAL: a package for performing multiple sequence alignment on a microcomputer

• Published in: Gene Vol. 73; no. 1; p. 237
• Main Authors: Higgins, D G, Sharp, P M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands 15-12-1988
• Subjects: Algorithms; Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Base Sequence; Globins - genetics; Humans; Microcomputers; Molecular Sequence Data; Phylogeny; RNA, Ribosomal, 5S - genetics; Software
• ISSN: 0378-1119
• DOI: 10.1016/0378-1119(88)90330-7

An approach for performing multiple alignments of large numbers of amino acid or nucleotide sequences is described. The method is based on first deriving a phylogenetic tree from a matrix of all pairwise sequence similarity scores, obtained using a fast pairwise alignment algorithm. Then the multiple alignment is achieved from a series of pairwise alignments of clusters of sequences, following the order of branching in the tree. The method is sufficiently fast and economical with memory to be easily implemented on a microcomputer, and yet the results obtained are comparable to those from packages requiring mainframe computer facilities.