title: Multiple RNA structure alignment.
abstract: Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) structures can be viewed as a special kind of strings where characters in a string can bond with each other. The question of aligning two RNA structures has been studied for a while, and there are several successful algorithms that are based upon different models. In this paper, by adopting the model introduced in Wang and Zhang,(19) we propose two algorithms to attack the question of aligning multiple RNA structures. Our methods are to reduce the multiple RNA structure alignment problem to the problem of aligning two RNA structure alignments. Meanwhile, we will show that the framework of sequence center star alignment algorithm can be applied to the problem of multiple RNA structure alignment, and if the triangle inequality is met in the scoring matrix, the approximation ratio of the algorithm remains to be 2-2(over)n, where n is the total number of structures.
authors.affiliation: Experimental Therapeutics, Research University Health Network, 620 University Health Network, Suite 703, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9, Canada. zwang@uhnres.utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Zhuozhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Kaizhong
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001483:Base Sequence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012313:RNA / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment / Q000379:methods*; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA / Q000379:methods*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D012313:RNA