Pintail is a tool for identifying anomalies within 16S rRNA
sequences. In essence, the program works by comparing
evolutionary distances between a query and subject sequence over the
entire length of the 16S rRNA gene, by employing a sampling window of
specified size, progressing a fixed number of bases at a time along the
length of the gene. When two reliable (i.e., non-anomalous) 16S
rRNA sequences are compared in this way, they should vary by roughly
the same amount over the length of the gene. If, however, one of
the sequences is in some way anomalous (for example, chimeric), the
percentage of base mismatches, along the length of the gene, will vary
to a degree dependentant on the nature of the anomaly.
Valid IUB Nucleotide Base Codes