Multiple Sequence Alignment Algorithms in Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is a fast-evolving topic today. It has useful from establishing phylogenetic trees, protein structure prediction to discovery of drugs, and hence the importance of bioinformatics cannot be underestimated. Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is the main step in performing the above tasks mentioned. Multiple sequence alignment is the science or a method where more than two sequences are arranged one above the other to find the regions of similarity between them. These regions of similarity are called ‘conserved-regions.’ Over time, there are many algorithms which are developed to give a ‘good’ alignment. These developments were essential to construct phylogenetic reconstruction, protein structure and protein prediction accurately. In this paper, we will talk about the most popular multiple sequence alignment algorithms. We first begin with the definition of multiple sequence alignment. Thereafter, we shall talk about the different techniques in multiple sequence alignment along with the most popular MSA algorithms.