The Distribution of Inversion Lengths in Bacteria

The distribution of the lengths of genomic segments inverte during the evolutionary divergence of two species cannot be inferred d rectly from the output of genome rearrangement algorithms, due to th rapid loss of signal from all but the shortest inversions. The numb of short inversions produced by these algorithms, however, particular those involving a single gene, is relatively reliable. To gain some insig into the shape of the inversion-length distribution we first apply a genom rearrangement algorithm to each of 32 pairs of bacterial genomes. F each pair we then simulate their divergence using a test distribution generate the inversions and use the simulated genomes as input to th reconstruction algorithm. It is the comparison between the algorith output for the real pair of genomes and the simulated pair which is use to assess the test distribution. We find that simulations based on th exponential distribution cannot provide a good fit, but that simulatio based on a gamma distribu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: RECOMB
• Authors: Adrian Maler, David Sankoff, Elisabeth R. M. Tillier, Jean-François Lefebvre, Nadia El-Mabrouk
• Keywords: Computational Biology, RECOMB 2004, Single-gene Inve Sions, Small Inversion Lengths, True Distr Bution