The degree of sequence variation in the alignment reveals evolutionary relatedness of different sequences, whereas the conservation between sequences reflects the changes that have occurred during evolution in the form of substitutions, insertions, and deletions.

Pairwise Sequence Alignment (PSA) is used to identify regions of similarity that may indicate functional, structural and/or evolutionary relationships between two biological sequences (protein or nucleic acid).

Topics include: Sequence Homology Versus Sequence Similarity and Identity, Methods, & Statistical Significance of Sequence Alignment.

Related Test: Bioinformatics Practice Test Questions: Sequence Alignment