Estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions when there are strong transition-transversion and G+C-content biases.

Abstract

A simple mathematical method is developed to estimate the number of nucleotide substitutions per site between two DNA sequences, by extending Kimura's (1980) two-parameter method to the case where a G+C-content bias exists. This method will be useful when there are strong transition-transversion and G+C-content biases, as in the case of Drosophila mitochondrial DNA.