Α Quantum Pattern Recognition Method for Improving Pairwise Sequence Alignment

Sci Rep. 2019 May 10;9(1):7226. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-43697-3.

Abstract

Quantum pattern recognition techniques have recently raised attention as potential candidates in analyzing vast amount of data. The necessity to obtain faster ways to process data is imperative where data generation is rapid. The ever-growing size of sequence databases caused by the development of high throughput sequencing is unprecedented. Current alignment methods have blossomed overnight but there is still the need for more efficient methods that preserve accuracy in high levels. In this work, a complex method is proposed to treat the alignment problem better than its classical counterparts by means of quantum computation. The basic principal of the standard dot-plot method is combined with a quantum algorithm, giving insight into the effect of quantum pattern recognition on pairwise alignment. The central feature of quantum algorithmic -quantum parallelism- and the diffraction patterns of x-rays are synthesized to provide a clever array indexing structure on the growing sequence databases. A completely different approach is considered in contrast to contemporary conventional aligners and a variety of competitive classical counterparts are classified and organized in order to compare with the quantum setting. The proposed method seems to exhibit high alignment quality and prevail among the others in terms of time and space complexity.