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Parsimony means doing  something in the simplest and most economical way.  In the context of variant representation, this means representing a variant in as few nucleotides as possible without reducing the length of any allele to 0.  It is a property describing the nature of the length of a variant's alleles.

Parsimony means doing  something in the simplest and most economical way.  In the context of variant representation, this means representing a variant in as few nucleotides as possible without reducing the length of any allele to 0.  It is a property describing the nature of the length of a variant's alleles.

   A variant is parsimonious if it is represented in as few nucleotides as possible without an allele of length 0.

   A variant is parsimonious if it is represented in as few nucleotides as possible  

  without an allele of length 0.

Taking the example below, the Multi Nucleotide Polymorphism (MNP) is represented superfluously for the first 3 representations and parsimoniously for the 4th representation.  When a variant has superfluous nucleotides on the left side, it is defined as not being left parsimonious as there is a need to left trim.  The concept is symmetric for right parsimony and trimming.  Parsimony applies to Indels too which we shall demonstrate in the left alignment section.   

Taking the example below, the Multi Nucleotide Polymorphism (MNP) is represented superfluously for the first 3 representations and parsimoniously for the 4th representation.  When a variant has superfluous nucleotides on the left side, it is defined as not being left parsimonious as there is a need to left trim.  The concept is symmetric for right parsimony and trimming.  Parsimony applies to Indels too which we shall demonstrate in the left alignment section.