SHANNON ENTROPY AND FRACTAL ANALYSIS FOR THE 16S RIBOSOMAL RNA AND COX2 MT-DNA SEQUENCES IN PRIMATES INCLUDING NEANDERTHAL

摘要

The primate mt-DNA 16S rRNA and COX2 sequences, including Neanderthal sequences, were studied using nucleotide frequency, mono- and di-nucleotide entropy, and fractal dimension. The fractal dimension was computed with the Higuchi method when a nucleotide sequence is expressed as a numerical sequence where each nucleotide is assigned its proton number. The results shows that the C+G percent correlates with the fractal dimension with R-square value of around 0.88 (N = 8) for both gene sequences. The Di- and mono-nucleotide entropy is also well correlated with similar R-square values. For the COX2 gene, the human and Neanderthal cluster at high entropy suggests that chimp, gorilla, and orangutan were subjected to a higher selection pressure for this gene. The human COX2 has less entropy than the Neanderthal COX2 consistent with the presence of some selection pressure.