2004/12/06 by Jon McAuliffe, Jon D. McAuliffe, Michael I. Jordan +4
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Chromosomal and Genetic Variations #FOS: Biological sciences #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genomics (q-bio.GN) #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM) #q-bio.GN #q-bio.QM
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.q-bio/0412012
16 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables
arxiv created 2004/12/06 · openalex publication_date 2004/12/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Sequence comparison across multiple organisms aids in the detection of regions under selection. However, resource limitations require a prioritization of genomes to be sequenced. This prioritization should be grounded in two considerations: the lineal scope encompassing the biological phenomena of interest, and the optimal species within that scope for detecting functional elements. We introduce a statistical framework for optimal species subset selection, based on maximizing power to detect conserved sites. In a study of vertebrate species, we show that the optimal species subset is not in general the most evolutionarily diverged subset. Our results suggest that marsupials are prime sequencing candidates.