BLOSUM, which stands for BLOcks SUbstitution Matrix, is a set of substitution matrices used for comparing sequences of proteins or nucleotides to determine their similarity. These matrices provide scores for aligning amino acids based on their observed frequencies in blocks of local alignments, which helps researchers evaluate evolutionary relationships and functional similarities between proteins. The BLOSUM matrices are crucial for analyzing sequence data in various bioinformatics applications, linking them to both pairwise alignments and broader genomic comparisons.
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