Can we detect DNA strand asymmetries using dinucleotide relative abundance "genomic signatures"?
The set of dinucleotide relative abundances can be regarded as a genomic signature because, despite diversity between species, it varies little between 50 kilobase or longer windows on a given genome. Thus, dinucleotide relative abundance profiles are species-type specific. These profiles are computed from the base step "odds ratios" that compare dinucleotide frequencies to those expected under the assumption of stochastic equilibrium (thorough shuffling). Dinucleotide relative abundance "genomic signatures" are strand-independent second-order DNA features. Thus, they cannot be used to detect DNA strand asymmetries.