bioinformatics

homologous

proteins are derived from the same evolutionary ancestor and show similar functions or structures

orthologs

homologs from different species that share a function

paralogs

homologs from the same species that have different functions

sequence alignment

method of statistically determining similarity between protein sequences; may be impacted by potential insertions/deletions during evolution

amino acid conservation

differences in amino acid sequence that have little impact on function because amino acids are very similar (same size, charge, etc)