The asymptotic plurality rule for molecular sequences

The asymptotic plurality rule, apl, is a consensus function which maps each profile P of length n (i.e., each sequence of n bases appearing at an aligned position of n molecules) to a set apl (P) of consensus results (i.e., ambiguity codes) that is a descriptive summary of P. Our main result is to characterize each consensus result X = apl(P) in terms of the frequencies with which the bases in P occur. We then use these characterizations to investigate features (e.g., strong consistency, length independence) of apl that researchers may find useful for the interpretation of aplʹs consensus results.