Human–horse sequence comparisons

Warnings (2)

Human–horse sequence comparisons

These global alignments compare the exact selected horse protein with the downloaded human Swiss-Prot canonical sequence. Run uv run compare.py HUMAN-uniprot.txt HORSE-uniprot.txt OUTPUT.json from the repository root with the appropriate paths. The script pins Biopython 1.85 and uses BLOSUM62 with gap opening −10 and extension −0.5. JSON records include the full alignment, input paths and sequence hashes, identities, and residue coverage.

Identity is calculated among residue–residue columns; coverage is the fraction of each input paired with a residue. Terminal and internal gaps therefore reduce coverage rather than identity. Similarity corroborates family assignment but does not establish reciprocal orthology, prove every isoform is functional, or exclude a gene-model error. Current sequences need not be the sequences originally submitted to ProtNLM.

In particular, the selected horse DYNLT2B protein is 245 residues whereas the human canonical protein is 142 residues. Only 52.2% of the horse sequence pairs with human residues, despite 91.4% identity among paired positions. This warrants examination of the extra sequence before transferring detailed localization or interaction claims. WEE1 is 646 residues in both species with 95.4% identity and complete paired coverage. The different outcomes demonstrate why identity alone is insufficient.