Segregating site on:
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Segregating sites are positions which show differences ( polymorphisms) between related genes in a 
sequence alignment
In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. Alig ...
(are not conserved). Segregating sites include conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
, semi-conservative and non-conservative mutations.
The proportion of segregating sites within a gene is an important statistic in population genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and pop ...
since it can be used to estimate mutation rate
In genetics, the mutation rate is the frequency of new mutations in a single gene or organism over time. Mutation rates are not constant and are not limited to a single type of mutation; there are many different types of mutations. Mutation rates ...
assuming no selection
Selection may refer to:
Science
* Selection (biology), also called natural selection, selection in evolution
** Sex selection, in genetics
** Mate selection, in mating
** Sexual selection in humans, in human sexuality
** Human mating strategie ...
. For example it is used to calculate the Tajima's D
Tajima's D is a population genetic test statistic created by and named after the Japanese researcher Fumio Tajima. Tajima's D is computed as the difference between two measures of genetic diversity: the mean number of pairwise differences and the ...
neutral evolution statistic.
See also
*Conserved sequence
In evolutionary biology, conserved sequences are identical or similar sequences in nucleic acids ( DNA and RNA) or proteins across species ( orthologous sequences), or within a genome ( paralogous sequences), or between donor and receptor taxa ...
* Ultra-conserved element An ultra-conserved element (UCE) was originally defined as a genome segment longer than 200 base pairs (bp) that is absolutely conserved, with no insertions or deletions and 100% identity, between orthologous regions of the human, rat, and mouse ge ...
* Sequence alignment
In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. Alig ...
* Sequence alignment software
This list of sequence alignment software is a compilation of software tools and web portals used in pairwise sequence alignment and multiple sequence alignment. See structural alignment software for structural alignment of proteins.
Database sear ...
* ClustalW
Clustal is a series of widely used computer programs used in bioinformatics for multiple sequence alignment. There have been many versions of Clustal over the development of the algorithm that are listed below. The analysis of each tool and its ...
References
Population genetics {{Genetics-stub