Global vs Local Alignment Jasmin sutkovic – Bioinformatics Lab 3 25.10.2018
What is the difference?
Global Alignment Compare the whole sequence, from one end to another, with our query sequence in order to find the best overall alignment
Local Alignment Compare only parts of the sequence with our query in order to get the best local alignments
Examples of Algorithms Global alignment: Needleman-Wunsch Local alignment: Smith-Waterman
Example
When do we use one and when the other?
Global Aligment When we want to compare the whole sequences or genes Usually when we are working with homologus genes
Local Alignment When we want to compare only parts of sequences or genes Usually when we are working with nonhomologus genes When we want to find the same/simillar protein domains in different genes
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