Question

Which of the following is untrue about DIALIGN2?

(a) It is a web based program designed to detect local similarities

(b) It is designed to detect global similarities

(c) It does not apply gap penalties and thus is not sensitive to long gaps

(d) The method breaks each of the sequences down to smaller segments and performs all possible pair wise alignments between the segments

I have been asked this question during an interview.

I need to ask this question from Heuristic Algorithms in section Multiple Sequence Alignment of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct answer is (b) It is designed to detect global similarities

To elaborate: High-scoring segments, called blocks, among different sequences are then compiled in a progressive manner to assemble a full multiple alignment. It places emphasis on block-to-block comparison rather than residue-to-residue comparison. The sequence regions between the blocks are left unaligned. The program has been shown to be especially suitable for aligning divergent sequences with only local similarity.