Sequence analysis

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The term "sequence analysis" in biology implies subjecting a DNA or peptide sequence to sequence alignment, sequence databases, repeated sequence searches, or other bioinformatics methods on a computer.

Sequence analysis in molecular biology and bioinformatics is an automated, computer-based examination of characteristical fragments, e.g. of a DNA-strand. It basically includes five biologically relevant topics:

1. the comparison of sequences in order to find similar sequences (sequence alignment)
2. identification of gene-structures, reading frames, distributions of introns and exons and regulatory elements
3. prediction of protein structures
4. genome mapping
5. comparison of homologous sequences to construct a molecular phylogeny

[edit] Application Areas

In chemistry, sequence analysis comprises techniques used to do determine the sequence of a polymer formed of several monomers. In molecular biology and genetics, the same process is called simply "sequencing."

In marketing sequence analysis is often used in analytical customer relationship management applications, such as NPTB models (Next Product to Buy).