Question

The use of Markov models in gene finding exploits the fact that oligonucleotide distributions in the coding regions are different from those for the noncoding regions.

(a) True

(b) False

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This interesting question is from Gene Prediction in Prokaryotes topic in portion Gene and Promoter Prediction of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

Correct answer is (a) True

The explanation: These can be represented with various orders of Markov models. Since a fixed-order Markov chain describes the probability of a particular nucleotide that depends on previous k nucleotides, the longer the oligomer unit, the more non-randomness can be described for the coding region. Therefore, the higher the order of a Markov model, the more accurately it can predict a gene.