Isochores Merit the Prefix 'Iso'

Abstract

The isochore concept in human genome sequence was challenged in an analysis by the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (IHGSC). We argue here that a statement in IGHSC analysis concerning the existence of isochore is incorrect, because it had applied an inappropriate statistical test. To test the existence of isochores should be equivalent to a test of homogeneity of windowed GC%. The statistical test applied in the IHGSC's analysis, the binomial test, is however a test of a sequence being random on the base level. For testing the existence of isochore, or homogeneity in GC%, we propose to use another statistical test: the analysis of variance (ANOVA). It can be shown that DNA sequences that are rejected by binomial test may not be rejected by the ANOVA test.

14 pages (including 1 figure), submitted

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