1) A theoretical representative nucleotide or amino acid sequence in which each nucleotide or amino acid is the one which occurs most frequently at that site in the different sequences which occur in nature. The phrase also refers to an actual sequence which approximates the theoretical consensus. A known conserved sequence set is represented by a consensus sequence. Commonly observed supersecondary protein structures (amino acid motifs) are often formed by conserved sequences.

2) A sequence pattern derived from the alignment of multiple sequences that represents the nucleotide or amino acid most likely to occur at each position in a sequence.