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. 1998;14(1):48-54.
doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/14.1.48.

Combining evidence using p-values: application to sequence homology searches

T L Bailey  1 , M Gribskov
Affiliations

Combining evidence using p-values: application to sequence homology searches

T L Bailey et al. Bioinformatics. 1998.

Abstract

Motivation: To illustrate an intuitive and statistically valid method for combining independent sources of evidence that yields a p-value for the complete evidence, and to apply it to the problem of detecting simultaneous matches to multiple patterns in sequence homology searches.

Results: In sequence analysis, two or more (approximately) independent measures of the membership of a sequence (or sequence region) in some class are often available. We would like to estimate the likelihood of the sequence being a member of the class in view of all the available evidence. An example is estimating the significance of the observed match of a macromolecular sequence (DNA or protein) to a set of patterns (motifs) that characterize a biological sequence family. An intuitive way to do this is to express each piece of evidence as a p-value, and then use the product of these p-values as the measure of membership in the family. We derive a formula and algorithm (QFAST) for calculating the statistical distribution of the product of n independent p-values. We demonstrate that sorting sequences by this p-value effectively combines the information present in multiple motifs, leading to highly accurate and sensitive sequence homology searches.

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Comment in

  • Concerning the accuracy of MAST E-values.
    Bailey TL, Gribskov M. Bailey TL, et al. Bioinformatics. 2000 May;16(5):488-9. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/16.5.488. Bioinformatics. 2000. PMID: 10871274 No abstract available.

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