VARIABILITY ANALYSIS OF HIV-1 GP120 V3 REGION .1. POINT ESTIMATORS FOR THE AMINO-ACID DISTRIBUTION CHARACTERISTICS

Enumerating procedure for symbol sequences is proposed. Relationship b etween Hamming distance for symbol sequences and Euclidean distance fo r corresponding enumerations is established, and more universal Hammin g-transformed Euclidean measure is constructed. A distribution functio n of amino acid substitutions and some of its point estimators (consen sus, subconsensus, sample mean, sample central moments and asymmetry c oefficient) are introduced. Hamming-transformed Euclidean measures bet ween consensuses, subconsensuses and sample means for ten HIV-1 taxons of gp120 V3 regions are calculated. It is demonstrated that these tax ons have a complicated pattern which is significant for their classifi cation.