Predictability of sequence error frequency allows for detection of spurious barcodes. Log-likelihood score of presumed correct (green dots) and incorrect (red dots) mother-daughter pairs for different numbers of nucleotide differences between barcodes of a pair. Dashed line represents the threshold above which pairs are subsequently considered correct. Note that the potential to distinguish between correct and incorrect mother-daughter pairs by the log-likelihood score decreases with the number of nucleotide differences. (PDF 66 kb)