Detecting the presence and location of selection in proteins

Abstract

Methods to detect the action of selection on proteins can now make strong predictions about its strength and location, but are becoming increasingly technical. The complexity of the methods makes it difficult to determine and interpret the significance of any selection detected. With more information being extracted from the data, the quality of the protein alignment and phylogeny used becomes increasingly important in assessing whether or not a prediction is merely a statistical artifact. Both data quality issues and statistical assessment of the results are considered. © 2008 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.