Consider a stretch of DNA with two short sequence motifs separated by an unknown number of base pairs. Each position in the intervening DNA is equally likely to be any of the four nucleotides. Would you expect many sites to be close together and a few farther apart? Few to be close together and many farther apart? Equal spacing? A normal distribution of distances between sites? In other words, which of the following curves do you think BEST approximates the distribution of the number of nucleotide pairs between two occurrences of a short sequence motif?

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The Answer of Consider a stretch of DNA with two short sequence motifs separated by an unknown number of base pairs. Each position in the intervening DNA is equally likely to be any of the four nucleotides. Would you expect many sites to be close together and a few farther apart? Few to be close together and many farther apart? Equal spacing? A normal distribution of distances between sites? In other words, which of the following curves do you think BEST approximates the distribution of the number of nucleotide pairs between two occurrences of a short sequence motif?

Consider a Stretch of DNA with Two Short Sequence Motifs