Non-parametric application on nucleotide substitution in DNA sequences

Abstract

The comparison of nucleotide substitutions rates between DNA sequences has two major difficulties: rates are result of pairwise comparisons between sequences so they are not independent, and the statistical distribution of this rates is unknown. Moreover the sample is sometimes small, which can limit the use of statistical methods. So, the comparisons of the evolutionary behaviour of genes through analysis of nucleotide substitution rates should be done using appropriate statistical approach. In the present study a statistical procedure is proposed to overcome these difficulties.