Probabilistic evolutionary models and (a few of) their applications.

Tal Pupko

In my talk I will describe current models of sequence evolution. I will presentfew works: (1) how these algorithms can help predict functional sites in a protein. A maximum likelihood and a Bayesian approaches for this task will be presented. (2) A method for detecting Òfunctional shiftsÓ, that is amino-acid sites that changed function during the course of evolution, will be presented. (3) A branch-and-bound search for finding the joint ML ancestral states when the evolutionary rate varies over sites.