Question

Which of the following does not describe global alignment algorithm?

(a) It attempts to align every residue in every sequence

(b) It is most useful when the aligning sequences are similar and of roughly the same size

(c) It is useful when the aligning sequences are dissimilar

(d) It can use Needleman-Wunsch algorithm

The question was asked in an internship interview.

This interesting question is from Global Sequence Alignment in chapter Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Correct answer is (c) It is useful when the aligning sequences are dissimilar

The best I can explain: Performing global alignment is most useful when the aligning sequences are similar and of roughly the same size. This is most useful to find the similarities among the organisms that are roughly connected on the timeline.