Abstract
Recently, an enrichment of identical matching sequences has been found in many eukaryotic genomes. Their length distribution exhibits a power law tail raising the question of what evolutionary mechanism or functional constraints would be able to shape this distribution. Here we introduce a simple and evolutionarily neutral model, which involves only point mutations and segmental duplications, and produces the same statistical features as observed for genomic data. Further, we extend a mathematical model for random stick breaking to analytically show that the exponent of the power law tail is and universal as it does not depend on the microscopic details of the model.
- Received 20 November 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.148101
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Published by the American Physical Society