Analysis of apparent 1/f^alpha spectrum in DNA sequences
B. Borstnik, D. Pumpernik, and D. Lukman,
Europhysics Letters 23(6), 389--394 (1993).
Abstract
The question whether the correlations in DNA sequences are long
ranged or short ranged is addressed by an extensive analysis
of genetic sequences. Our results do not support the notion
of critical properties of sequential distribution of nucleotides.
Continuous segments of DNA (chromosomes) can be viewed as a
mosaic structure of shorter segments with distinct functional
role and, consequently, with distinct compositional and
sequential characteristics. It is shown that the correlation
functions within well-defined sequential entities decay
exponentially after one or two hundred nucleotides. The main
contribution to the correlations stems from the correlated
distributions of repetitions of similar nucleotides. If the
analysis of correlations is performed without respect to
the borders between functional entities one obtains the signs
of long-range correlations.
