Waiting times for clumps of patterns and for structured motifs in random sequences

This paper provides exact probability results for waiting times associated with occurrences of two types of motifs in a random sequence. First, we provide an explicit expression for the probability generating function of the interarrival time between two clumps of a pattern. It allows, in particular, to measure the quality of the Poisson approximation which is currently used for evaluation of the distribution of the number of clumps of a pattern. Second, we provide explicit expressions for the probability generating functions of both the waiting time until the first occurrence, and the interarrival time between consecutive occurrences, of a structured motif. Distributional results for structured motifs are of interest in genome analysis because such motifs are promoter candidates. As ail application. we determine significant structured motifs in a data set of DNA regulatory sequences. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.