Genetic algorithm approaches for the phylogenetic analysis of large biological sequence datasets under the maximum likelihood criterion

作者：Derrick J. Zwickl · 发表于：Texas ScholarWorks (Texas Digital Library) · 年份：2006 · 被引用次数：3150 · 研究领域：Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies、Evolution and Paleontology Studies、Algorithms and Data Compression

Phylogenetic trees have a multitude of applications in biology, epidemiology, conservation and even forensics. However, the inference of phylogenetic trees can be extremely computationally intensive. The computational burden of such analyses becomes even greater when model-based methods are used. Model-based methods have been repeatedly shown to be the most accurate choice for the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees, and thus are an attractive choice despite their high computational demands. Using the Maximum Likelihood (ML) criterion to choose among phylogenetic trees is one commonly used model-based technique. Until recently, software for performing ML analyses of biological sequence data was largely intractable for more vi than about one hundred sequences. Because advances in sequencing technology now make the assembly of datasets consisting of thousands of sequences common, ML search algorithms that are able to quickly and accurately analyze such data must be developed if ML techniques are to remain a viable option in the future. I have developed a fast and accurate algorithm that allows ML phylogenetic searches to be performed on datasets consisting of thousands of sequences. My software uses a genetic algorithm approach, and is named GARLI (Genetic Algorithm for Rapid Likelihood Inference). The speed of this new algorithm results primarily from its novel technique for partial optimization of branch-length parameters following topological rearrangements. Experiments per...