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Caveat
The use of sequence similarity is extremely powerful, and its importance is
growing. However, there is no one-one correspondence between sequence and
structure or sequence and function, because the converse of the first fact is not true. That is, high sequence similarity usually
implies significant structural or functional similarity (the first fact), but
structural or functional similarity does not necessarily imply sequence
similarity. On the topic of protein structure, F. Cohen [#!COH!#] writes
``... similar sequences yield similar structures, but quite distinct sequences
can produce remarkably similar structures." This converse issue is one
indication of the many open research areas even in sequence-oriented
bioinformatics.
Dan Gusfield
1999-02-19