Technology or method
Bioinformatics
Using computers to store, search and analyze biological data such as DNA and protein sequences.
Sequence alignment
Lining up DNA or protein sequences to find similarities. Dynamic programming finds the best global or local alignment.Source: Needleman & Wunsch, 1970Source: Smith & Waterman, 1981
Also called Needleman-Wunsch, Smith-Waterman.
Technology or method
How Sequence alignment connects
Sequence alignment is an example of
Sequence alignment is used by
Technology or method
BLAST
A fast heuristic tool for finding similar sequences in large databases.
Sequence alignment uses
Idea or model
Substitution matrices
Scores for replacing one amino acid with another, such as BLOSUM, used when aligning proteins.
Studied in
Your progress
Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
A general method applicable to the search for similarities in the amino acid sequence of two proteins (opens the original in a new tab)
Needleman SB, Wunsch CD (1970). Journal of Molecular Biology 48:443-453.
Dynamic programming for global sequence alignment.
Historical paperPrimary researchIdentification of common molecular subsequences (opens the original in a new tab)
Smith TF, Waterman MS (1981). Journal of Molecular Biology 147:195-197.
Dynamic programming for local sequence alignment.
Peer-reviewedPrimary research