About identifying unique sequences

Commands in mothur
1

Hi,

I was wondering how does mothur identify unique sequences? As unique.seqs() mentioned, it looks for identical sequences.
If two sequences are different length (length of seq1 > length of seq2), and seq2 is identical to part of seq1, does mothur see seq1 and seq2 as identical sequences?

If mothur doesn’t see that case as identical sequences, what is the rational reasons?

Thank you very much for any help.

Best
Ning

2

To be duplicates the sequences must be the same length and the same sequence. Why? well… that would be a duplicate :slight_smile:

Pat