An algorithmic view on multi-related-segments: A unifying model for approximate common interval

Abstract : A set of genes that are proximately located on multiple chromosomes often implies their origin from the same ancestral genomic segment or their involvement in the same biological process. Among the numerous studies devoted to model and infer these gene sets, the recently introduced approximate common interval (ACI) models capture gene loss events in addition to the gene insertion, duplication and inversion events already incorporated by earlier models. However, the computational tractability of the corresponding problems remains open in most of the cases. In this contribution, we propose a unifying model for ACI, namely Multi-related-segments (Mrs), and demonstrate that capturing gene losses induces intractability in many cases (answering an open question raised in [19,20]).