The limits of random fingerprinting

Abstract

Various random fingerprinting methods are sometimes used to detect overlap between pairs of clones as a first step toward producing a minimal tiling path of clones for subsequent mapping and sequencing efforts. This paper evaluates and compares various statistical procedures for detecting pairwise overlap between clones when the fingerprints arise from any random process meeting simple, plausible assumptions about the relationship between overlap and the resulting fingerprint. Examples of such random processes include, but are not limited to, large-scale hybridization procedures designed to prepare tiling paths of clones for subsequent large-scale genomic sequencing. Our goals are to assess ..