A Linear Algorithm for String Reconstruction in the Reverse Complement Equivalence Model

In the reverse complement equivalence model, it is not possible to distinguish a string from its reverse complement. We show that one can still reconstruct a string of length n, up to reverse complement, using a linear number of subsequence queries of bounded length. We first give the proof for strings over a binary alphabet, and then extend it to arbitrary finite alphabets. A simple information theoretic lower bound proves the number of queries to be asymptotically tight. Furthermore, our result is optimal w.r.t. the bound on the query length given in [Erd ̋os et al., Ann. of Comb. 2006].