Maximum likelihood alignment of DNA sequences.

The optimal alignment problem for pairs of molecular sequences under a probabilistic model of evolutionary change is equivalent to the problem of estimating the maximum likelihood time required to transform one sequence to the other. When this time has been estimated, various alignments of high posterior probability may be written down. A simple model with two parameters is presented and a method is described by which the likelihood may be computed. Maximum likelihood estimates for some pairs of tRNA genes illustrate the method and allow us to obtain the best alignments under the model.