Entering edit mode
2.6 years ago
pollyyhjo
▴
10
Can someone please provide (1) definition of BLAST and HMM searches and (2) describe/explain what the difference is between BLAST and HMM search? PS. This is NOT a homework help. I am trying to understand the concepts behind BLAST and HMM. Thanks in advance!
I'll give you a few pointers but would also like to know what you did/read so far? While this will take some effort to get it figured out, it is for from impossible to find this information by searching (google?) or reading up with the appropriate manuscripts?
Have you read the (initial) papers on blast and/or HMM ?
where blast works with the actual sequence(s) , HMM uses a statistical model to represent the sequence(s) or profiles and uses that for searching.
Blast is the most intuitive approach of doing searches (using basic alignment methods), HMM is much more sensitive and can/Will pick up much more divergent hits than blast.
Blast uses a single sequence as input, where HMM can (but does not have to) use multiple sequences as input (in the form of a sequence profile)
The blast flavor that is most similar to HMM is PSI-BLAST.