Isochores merit the prefix 'iso'

Comput Biol Chem. 2003 Feb;27(1):5-10. doi: 10.1016/s1476-9271(02)00090-7.

Abstract

The isochore concept in the human genome sequence was challenged in an analysis by the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGSC). We argue here that a statement in the IHGSC's analysis concerning the existence of isochores is misleading, because the homogeneity was not examined at a large enough length scale and consequently an inappropriate statistical test was applied. A test of the existence of isochores should be equivalent to a test of homogeneity or equality of windowed GC%. The statistical test applied in the IHGSC's analysis, the binomial test, is a test of whether individual bases are independent and identically-distributed (iid). For testing the existence of isochores, or homogeneity in windowed GC%, we propose to use another statistical test: the analysis of variance (ANOVA). It can be shown that DNA sequences that are rejected by the binomial test may not be rejected by the ANOVA test.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Base Composition
  • Binomial Distribution
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Computational Biology / statistics & numerical data
  • CpG Islands
  • GC Rich Sequence
  • Genome, Human
  • Humans
  • Isochores / chemistry*
  • Models, Statistical
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA / statistics & numerical data

Substances

  • Isochores