Detection of transcription factor binding sites using Rényi entropy

During the process of protein synthesis, transcription of DNA to messenger RNA starts with the binding of the transcription factors to the promoter. One of the issues on the prediction of transcription factor binding is that sequences corresponding to the binding present variability. In this manuscript a method for the detection of binding site is proposed, based on a parametric uncertainty measurement (Renyi entropy). This measurement is done through an estimation of the probability for each nucleotide avoiding any numerical representation of the nucleotides. We obtain values of the efficiency of the method as receiver operating characteristic curves found on ABF1 and ROX1 binding sites in chromosome I and XVI of the organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae.