FOGSAA: Fast Optimal Global Sequence Alignment Algorithm

In this article we propose a Fast Optimal Global Sequence Alignment Algorithm, FOGSAA, which aligns a pair of nucleotide/protein sequences faster than any optimal global alignment method including the widely used Needleman-Wunsch (NW) algorithm. FOGSAA is applicable for all types of sequences, with any scoring scheme, and with or without affine gap penalty. Compared to NW, FOGSAA achieves a time gain of (70–90)% for highly similar nucleotide sequences (> 80% similarity), and (54–70)% for sequences having (30–80)% similarity. For other sequences, it terminates with an approximate score. For protein sequences, the average time gain is between (25–40)%. Compared to three heuristic global alignment methods, the quality of alignment is improved by about 23%–53%. FOGSAA is, in general, suitable for aligning any two sequences defined over a finite alphabet set, where the quality of the global alignment is of supreme importance.