Techniques for detecting approximate tandem repeats in DNA

The detection of tandem repeats is important in biology and medicine as it can be used for phylogenetic studies and disease diagnosis. The paper proposes two techniques for detecting approximate tandem repeats (ATRs) in DNA sequences. First, an evolutionary force heuristic is proposed to merge interspersed perfect tandem repeat sequences into an ATR structure. Next., a more general method is presented using a product spectrum of Fourier nucleotide subsequences to detect hidden periodicity. The Fourier method is sensitive to ATRs and is robust in the presence of substitutions, insertions, and deletions.