Question

Which of the following is not a characteristic of Fuzzy or approximate matches in regular expression?

(a) This method is able to include more variant forms of a motif with a conserved function

(b) the rule of matching is based on observations, not actual assumptions

(c) with the more relaxed matching, there is increase of the noise level and false positives

(d) the rule of matching is based on assumptions not actual observations

I have been asked this question in an interview for job.

My doubt stems from Motif and Domain Databases Using Regular Expressions topic in portion Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct option is (b) the rule of matching is based on observations, not actual assumptions

Easy explanation: The rule of matching is based on assumptions not actual observations in Fuzzy or approximate matches in regular expression. This provides more permissive matching by allowing more flexible matching of residues of similar biochemical properties. For example, if an original alignment only contains phenylalanine at a particular position, fuzzy matching allows other aromatic residues (including unobserved tyrosine and tryptophan) in a sequence to match with the expression.