Question

In Genetic Algorithm, in the mutation process _______

(a) sequence is changed

(b) gaps are not inserted

(c) sequence is not changed

(d) gaps are not rearranged

I got this question in an internship interview.

This interesting question is from Iterative Methods of Multiple Sequence Alignment in portion Multiple Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Correct choice is (c) sequence is not changed

The best I can explain: In the mutation process, the sequence is not changed (else it would no longer be an alignment), but gaps are inserted and rearranged in an attempt to create a better-scoring MSA. In the gap insertion process, the sequences in a given MSA are divided into two groups based on an estimated phylogenetic tree, and gaps of random length are inserted into random positions in the alignment.