APPLICATION OF ACO ALGORITHMS TO DEALING WITH MOLECULAR BIOLOGY PROBLEMS

Abstract

Optimization problems in molecular biology is one of the most investigated fields in computer science today; one notable case is the  prediction of RNA structures by  optimizing algorithms. ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) algorithm is the research method inspired from the simulation of the behavior of ants in nature for the solution to optimization problems. The communication among ants or between ants and the environment is based on the use of chemicals produced by the ants; these chemicals are called pheromones. Roads with fewer pheromones will be gradually removed; eventually all ants will go on the road having the potential to  become the shortest path from their nest to a food source. This paper introduces the ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) algorithm as a new way to solve the problem of  predicting the optimal secondary structures of  RNAs that have the most stable  total energy.