The resulting tree is then used to guide the alignment of the most closely related sequences and groups of sequences. The resulting alignment is a global alignment produced by the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm.

Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is a tool used to identify the evolutionary relationships and common patterns between genes.

Topics include: Exhaustive Algorithms, Heuristic Algorithms, Needleman – Wunsch Algorithm, Progressive Methods of Multiple Sequence Alignment, Iterative Methods of Multiple Sequence Alignment, Localized Alignments in Sequences, Statistical Methods for Aiding Alignment, & Position – Specific Scoring Matrices.