Evaluating graphical and statistical techniques for measuring similarity in DNA sequences

One of the major subjects of study in computational biology is finding the similarity between DNA sequences. Several techniques exist that are either based on alignment between sequences or are alignment-free. This paper demonstrates two techniques that are alignment-free. The first one is based on a graphical representation of the difference between DNA sequences, while the other one is based on the statistical correlation coefficient between the DNA sequences. Both techniques were tested on the beta-Globin genes of seven species. Results confirmed results in other relevant research papers. Further investigation, analysis and comparison between the two evaluated approaches is also conducted.