Dot plot (bioinformatics)

A dot plot ( dt dot plot ) is a graphical method of bioinformatics to compare two biological sequences together (or a sequence with itself). The sequences on the horizontal and vertical axes (top and right) are plotted and marked similarities between a row and column of the specified interface by a period ( dot german ).

The dot plot is the discovery of similar or matching regions.

Interpretation

To the right a DNA sequence has been compared with itself. In addition to the expected, complete conformity of the sequence recognized by the diagonal (top left to bottom right), there are further regional similarities.

An interruption of the diagonals shifted down or right continuation would insertions (eg introns ) or deletions show ( not the case here ). Lines outside the main diagonal represent similar or repetitive units.