Patent ID: 7587282

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of identifying one or more nucleic acid positions in a group of nucleic acid sequences, the computer-implemented method comprising: (a) accessing data representing a multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of a plurality of nucleic acid sequences using a suitably programmed computer; (b) identifying with the computer one or more evolutionarily conserved nucleic acid positions within the MSA using the following equation: Δ ⁢ ⁢ G i stat = kT * ⁢ ∑ x ⁢ ( ln ⁢ P i x P MSA x ) 2 wherein: i is a position in the MSA; ΔG i stat is the conservation energy value for position i; P i x is the probability of nucleic acid x at position i; P MSA x is the probability of nucleic acid x in the MSA; and kT* is an energy unit, where k is Boltzmann's constant; and (c) outputting in a user-viewable format one or more conversation energy values calculated using the equation.