You have sequenced the genome of the bacteria Salmonella typhrimurium, and you are using BLAST analysis to identify similarities within the S. typhimurium genome to known proteins. You find a protein that is 100 percent identical in the bacterium Escherichia coli. When you compare nucleotide sequences of the S. typhimurium and E. coli genes, you find their nucleotide sequences are only 87 percent identical.
a. Explain this observation.
b. What do these observations tell you about the merits of nucleotide versus protein similarity searches in identifying related genes?