Fuzzy polynucleotide spaces and metrics

Abstract

The study of genetic sequences is of great importance in biology and medicine. Mathematics is playing all important role in the study of genetic sequences and. generally, in bioinformatics. In this paper, we extend the work concerning the Fuzzy Polynuclotide Space (FPS) introduced in Torres, A., Nieto, J.J.. 2003. The fuzzy polynuclotide Space: Basic properties. Bioinformatics 19(5)-, 587592 and Nicto, J.J.. Torres, A.. Vazquez-Trasande, M.M. 2003. A metric space to study differences between polynucleotides. Appl. Math. Lett. 27:1289-1294 by studying distances between nucleotides and some complete genomes using several metrics. We also present new results concerning the notions of similarity, difference and equality between polynucleotides. The results are encouraging since they demonstrate how the notions of distance and similarity between polynucleotides in the FPS can be employed in the analysis of genetic material.