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relationship of subgraph (for motif ) or isomor- biological pattern recognition, most commonly
phism (for exact motif ). in DNA and protein sequence motives.
For our purposes the term “pattern” is synony- Officially, motif may be pluralized either
mous with motif. It is not obvious that the notion motives (with the accent on the last syllable) or
of motif as used in biology is isomorphic to that motifs. One will find both in the biological liter-
of pattern. Definitions of motif and pattern have ature.
been developed to cover problems arising from See also biochemical, chemical, dynamical,
tessellation of surfaces (such as tiling a plane functional, kinetic, mechanistic, phylogenetic,
like your bathroom floor). Instead, our intent regulatory, thermodynamic, and topological
is to capture the notion of motif as it is used in motives.

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