Some 2-D and 3-D graphical representations of DNA sequences have been given by Gate, Nandy, Leong, Randic, and Guo et al. Based on 2-D graphical representation of DNA sequences, Raychaudhury and Nandy introduced the first-order moments of the x and y coordinates and the radius of the plot of a DNA sequence for indexing scheme and similarity measures of DNA sequences. In this Letter, based on Guo's novel 2-D graphical representation of DNA sequences of low degeneracy, we introduce the improved first-order moments of the x and y coordinates and the radius of DNA sequences, and the distance of two DNA sequences. The new descriptors of DNA sequences give a good numerical characterization of DNA sequences, which have lower degeneracy. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.