Maximum Likelihood Estimates of Rearrangement Distance: Implementing a Representation-Theoretic Approach

Area of Science:

• Computational Biology
• Genomics
• Evolutionary Biology

Background:

• Calculating evolutionary distance from genome rearrangements is computationally intensive.
• Existing methods often require specific models, limiting their applicability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel technique for calculating evolutionary distance between circular genomes.
• To demonstrate the versatility and applicability of this technique across different genome rearrangement models.

Main Methods:

• Applied representation theory to transform combinatorial genome rearrangement problems into numerical computations.
• Developed a maximum likelihood estimation approach for evolutionary distance.

Main Results:

• The technique successfully reduces computational complexity.
• Demonstrated applicability to models with diverse rearrangements and probabilities.
• Investigated the symmetry properties of circular genome rearrangement models.
• Provided initial calculation results for genomes up to 11 regions without numerical approximations.

Conclusions:

• The representation theory approach offers a computationally efficient and broadly applicable method for estimating evolutionary distance.
• This technique enhances the study of genome evolution and rearrangement mechanisms.