Question

The scoring function for multiple sequence alignment is based on the concept of sum of pairs (SP).

(a) True

(b) False

The question was posed to me during a job interview.

Enquiry is from Exhaustive Algorithms in chapter Multiple Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Correct answer is (a) True

For explanation: Multiple sequence alignment is to arrange sequences in such a way that a maximum number of residues from each sequence are matched up according to a particular scoring function and is based on the concept of sum of pairs (SP). As the name suggests, it is the sum of the scores of all possible pairs of sequences in a multiple alignment based on a particular scoring matrix.