Bioinformatics
Objectives
At the end
of this lecture, student will be able to
• Define bioinformatics
• Understand the objectives of
bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
What is Bioinformatics?
It is a inter
disciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding
biological data
Intensive datas can be handled by bio informatics
It deals with the application of computers to collect,
organize, analyse and validate the datas
• Biologists
are increasingly finding that the management of complex data sets is becoming a
bottleneck for scientific advances.
• Therefore,
bioinformatics is rapidly become a key technology in all fields of biology.
The present barrier in bioinformatics include the
• education
of biologists in the use of advanced computing tools,
• the
recruitment of computer scientists into this evolving field,
• the
limited availability of developed databases of biological information, and
• the
need for more efficient and intelligent search engines for complex databases.
• Used
in the field of molecular biology and genomics – hence massive amount of
datas are available
• Databases
– are available – stores data in a uniform and consistence manner – Contain DNA
sequencing, DNA and protein structures
• GenBank
– managed by National center biology information – 1ST DATABASE
setup to store DNA sequencing data – 1982
• EMBL
– European molecular biology laboratory – DNA and RNA sequences – they have
collected information’s from the patents filed and scientific literatures –
western Europe – 17 countries
• EC
– Enzyme – Alternate names, catalytic activity, diseases associated with
the deficiency of the enzymes
• Protein
databank – 3D structures of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates
• Protein
modeling – Proteins – folding or threading
• Use
of protein modeling – protein in 3D allows for greater understanding of
protein functions – providing a virtual understanding
• Homology
and similarity tools – used to analyse the similarity between two
structures or sequences
• Molecular
medicine – Most of diseases are related to genetic and environmental
components – we can search gene directly associated with different diseases –
better drugs can be invented
Bioinformatics – application
Personalized medicine
• Pharmacogenomics
– study how an individual’s genetic inheritance affects body’s response to
drugs
• At
present doctors use trial and error method to find best medicine to treat a
particular patient
• In
future doctors will be able to analyse the patients genetic profile and
prescribe the best available medicine and dosage from beginning
Evolutionary studies
• Sequencing
of genomes from organisms
• Helps
to determine the tree of life
Microbial genomic application
• MGP
– project – to sequence genomes of bacteria
• Useful
in energy production, waste management, industrial processing
• Scientists
can understand these microbes at fundamental level
• Isolate
the genes that give them their unique abilities to survive under extreme
conditions
Objectives
- Organizing
biological data
• Bioinformatics
organizes data in such a way that allows researchers to access existing
information and to submit new entries
Eg. Protein databank – macromolecules
• Information
stored in databank become useless until it is analysed
2. Analysis of data
• To
develop tools and resources – helps in analysis of data
Eg. Having sequenced a particular protein – compare it with
previously characterized sequence
• Development
of such tools require extensive knowledge of computational biology and
understanding of biology
3. Interpretation and application of data
• Third
objective is to use these tools to analyse the data and interpret the results
in a biologically meaningful manner
Summary
• Bioinformatics
means to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or visualize such data
• Objectives
– Organizing, analyzing and interpreting data’s