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. 2015 Feb 19;2(1):ofv024. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofv024

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Basic principal of Life Identification Number (LIN) assignment. Each LIN is composed of a series of positions corresponding to average nucleotide identity values increasing from left to right of the LIN. The actual symbol at each position can be any number or letter and does not reflect the degree of similarity between genomes. The information content in a LIN is its similarity to other LINs. For example, the first genome added to the database is assigned “0” in all positions (Example 1). A genome with relatively low genome similarity compared with Example 1 (74% for Example 2) will have a LIN that is the same up to the LIN position B corresponding to the 70% threshold (because 74 is higher than 70) but different at position C corresponding to the 80% threshold (because 74 is lower than 80). A genome more similar to Example 1 (99.4% for Example 3) has a LIN that is identical to Example 1 up to a position further to the right (position L), and almost identical genomes have LINs identical to each other nearly up to the right-most position (Examples 1 and 5). Identical genomes have identical LINs (Examples 3 and 4).