Patent ID: 7702595

Claim:
A computer system for screening nucleotide sequences, wherein the system comprises one or more distinct units, each of the one or more distinct units being embodied on a tangible computer-readable recordable storage medium, and wherein the system comprises: a target nucleotide sequence storing unit for storing target nucleotide sequence data, wherein the target nucleotide sequence storing unit executes on a hardware processor; a complementary sequence data storing unit for generating complementary sequence data from a probe nucleotide sequence and storing the complementary sequence data, wherein the complementary sequence data storing unit executes on a hardware processor; a maximum edit distance storing unit for storing a maximum acceptable edit distance between the target nucleotide sequence and the probe nucleotide sequence, wherein the maximum edit distance storing unit executes on a hardware processor; an evaluation processing unit for evaluating a binding possibility of the target nucleotide sequence data to the probe nucleotide sequence via a determination of whether the complementary sequence data of the probe nucleotide sequence is similar to a subsequence of the target nucleotide sequence data, wherein the evaluation is performed in descending order from a first edit distance value to a second edit distance value, the second edit distance value being lower than the first edit distance value, further wherein an edit distance is the number of times nucleotides of the subsequence are required to be adjusted to generate the complementary sequence data, and wherein the evaluation processing unit comprises a termination-determining unit for dynamically determining a termination point for the evaluation of the binding possibility, wherein the termination-determining unit determines whether the evaluation of the complementary sequence data is carried out over the maximum edit distance, and wherein the termination-determining unit compares a value of min_k and the maximum edit distance k, wherein min_k represents a minimum value of edit distance, and wherein the termination-determining unit commands the evaluation processing unit to stop evaluating at a point when the value of min_k becomes greater than k, further wherein the evaluation processing unit executes on a hardware processor; and a storage unit for storing an evaluation result obtained by the evaluation processing unit for use by a user in determining binding effectiveness and reliability of the probe nucleotide sequence to the target nucleotide sequence, wherein the storage unit executes on a hardware processor.