--- title: Dot plot (bioinformatics) slug: dot-plot-bioinformatics qid: snapshot: enwiki-001318168132 content_hash: license: CC BY-SA 4.0 source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1318168132 tags: [20209713, 23118434, 23603337, 25122270] --- # Dot plot (bioinformatics) > [!note] Provenance > Snapshot `enwiki-001318168132` · content root `…` > Derived from · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 dot plot of a human zinc finger transcription factor (GenBank ID NM_002383), showing regional self-similarity. The main diagonal represents the sequence's alignment with itself; lines off the main diagonal represent similar or repetitive patterns within the sequence. In bioinformatics a dot plot is a graphical method for comparing two biological sequences and identifying regions of close similarity after sequence alignment. It is a type of recurrence plot. dot plot of a human zinc finger transcription factor (GenBank ID NM_002383), showing regional self-similarity. The main diagonal represents the sequence's alignment with itself; lines off the main diagonal represent similar or repetitive patterns within the sequence.]] In bioinformatics a dot plot is a graphical method for comparing two biological sequences and identifying regions of close similarity after sequence alignment. It is a type of recurrence plot. ==History== One way to visualize the similarity between two protein or nucleic acid sequences is to use a similarity matrix, known as a dot plot. These were introduced by Gibbs and McIntyre in 1970 and are two-dimensional matrices that have the sequences of the proteins being compared along the vertical and horizontal axes. For a simple visual representation of the similarity between two sequences, individual cells in the matrix can be shaded black if residues are identical, so that matching sequence segments appear as runs of diagonal lines across the matrix. ==See also== Protein contact map Recurrence plot Self-similarity matrix ==References==