Editing Sequence analysis (section)

{{Short description|Identification and study of genomic sequences}}
{{distinguish|sequential analysis|sequence analysis of synthetic polymers|Sequence analysis in social sciences}}
In [[bioinformatics]], '''sequence analysis''' is the process of subjecting a [[DNA sequence|DNA]], [[RNA]] or [[peptide sequence]] to any of a wide range of analytical methods to understand its features, function, structure, or evolution. It can be performed on the entire genome, transcriptome or proteome of an organism, and can also involve only selected segments or regions, like tandem repeats and transposable elements. Methodologies used include [[sequence alignment]], searches against [[biological database]]s, and others.<ref>{{Durbin 1998}}</ref>

Since the development of methods of high-throughput production of gene and protein sequences, the rate of addition of new sequences to the databases increased very rapidly. Such a collection of sequences does not, by itself, increase the scientist's understanding of the biology of organisms. However, comparing these new sequences to those with known functions is a key way of understanding the biology of an organism from which the new sequence comes. Thus, sequence analysis can be used to assign function to coding and non-coding regions in a biological sequence usually by comparing sequences and studying similarities and differences. Nowadays, there are many tools and techniques that provide the sequence comparisons (sequence alignment) and analyze the alignment product to understand its biology.

Sequence analysis in [[molecular biology]] includes a very wide range of processes:

#The comparison of sequences to find similarity, often to infer if they are related ([[Sequence homology|homologous]])
#Identification of intrinsic features of the sequence such as [[active site]]s, [[post translational modification]] sites,  [[Sequence motif|gene-structures]], [[reading frame]]s, distributions of [[intron]]s and [[exon]]s and [[Gene regulation|regulatory elements]]
#Identification of sequence differences and variations such as [[point mutation]]s and [[single nucleotide polymorphism]] (SNP) in order to get the [[genetic marker]].
#Revealing the evolution and [[genetic diversity]] of sequences and organisms
#Identification of molecular structure from sequence alone.