An efficient system for finding functional motifs in genomic DNA sequences by using nature-inspired algorithms

Abstract

Motifs are short patterns in Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) that indicate the presence of certain biological characteristics. Motifs finding is the process of successfully finding meaningful motifs in large DNA sequences. Nature-inspired algorithms have been recently gaining much popularity in solving complex and large real-world optimization problems similar to the motif finding problem. This work aims on investigating the application of nature-inspired algorithms in motif finding problem. The investigation methodology is divided into three main approaches; the first is to apply well-known nature-inspired algorithms in solving the problem, then the enhancement of an algorithm is investigated, and finally the hybridization between two algorithms is investigated. Experiments are performed on synthetic as well as real data sets. The results show that the combination provides the best results, however, individual and modified algorithms provide also good results compared to some state-of-the-art tools.