Classification of DNA sequences based on thermal melting profiles

A new classification scheme based on the melting profile of DNA sequences simulated thermal melting profiles presented. This method was applied in the classification of (a) several species of mammalian - beta globin and (b) alpha-chain class II MHC genes. Comparison of the thermal melting profile with the molecular phylogenetic trees constructed using the sequences shows that the melting temperature based approach is able to reproduce most of the major features of the sequence based evolutionary tree. Melting profile method takes into account the inherent structure and dynamics of the DNA molecule, does not require sequence alignment prior to tree construction, and provides a means to verify the results experimentally. Therefore our results show that melting profile based classification of DNA sequences could be a useful tool for sequence analysis.