DNA Sequence Representation and Comparison Based on Quaternion Number System

Abstract

Conventional schemes for DNA sequence representation, storage, and processing areusually developed based on the character-based formats.We propose the quaternion number system for numerical representation and further processing on DNA sequences.In the proposed method, the quaternion cross-correlation operation can be used to obtain both the global and local matching/mismatching information between two DNA sequences from the depicted one-dimensional curve and two-dimensional pattern, respectively.Simulation results on various DNA sequences and the comparison result with the well-known BLAST method are obtained to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.