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In this article:
- Meaning of Bioinformatics
- Research in Bionformatics
- Binformatics Software
Meaning of Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is the process of using applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, and computer science to solve biological problems that are being faced today.
Bioinformatics is often considered synonymous to computational biology. However, bioinformatics is aimed at developing algorithms to solve biological problems while computational biology refers to hypothesis testing in biology.
Research in Bioinformatics
There are various areas in which research is being conducted under bioinformatics. Some of the major ones are explained below:
- Sequence analysis
Since 1977, the DNA sequences of many organisms have been decoded and stored in electronic databases. This data is often analyzed to show similarities between protein functions, or relations between species. As the database is now very large, it is not possible to analyze them manually. This is where computers have come to the aid. Computers help analyze these DNA codes and identify where a sequence (that is identical) lies. They can even detect variations in the sequence when newer bases are added in the DNA nucleus. Computer programs can perform an automatic search for genes and regulatory sequences within a genome. DNA sequences have been used for protein identification by way of such software.
- Computational evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology studies the origin and descent of species as well as the changes that have taken place in them over time. Bionformatics helps evolutionary biologists to:
- trace the evolution of a large number of organizms
- compare entire genomes hence enabling them to study more complex evolutionary events (eg., gene duplication)
- build computational models of populations
- Measuring biodiversity
Biodiversity is the total genomic complement of a particular environment, from all of the species present, from the entire biosphere of the planet Earth. Databases store species names, descriptions, distributions, genetic information, status and size of populations, habitat needs etc. Specialized software programs are analyzing the information and communicate it to other people. Computer simulations model these as population dynamics. This information may later be used to understand a particular species even after it is extinct.
- Gene expression analysis
The expression of many genes can be determined by measuring mRNA levels with multiple techniques including microarrays, expressed cDNA sequence tag (EST) sequencing, serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) tag sequencing, massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS), or various applications of multiplexed in-situ hybridization. Bioinformatics helps analyze data while eleminating ‘noise’ (i.e., disturbances) while analyzing them. This results in a precise analysis that is considered very useful.
- Protein expression analysis
A biological sample contains a variety of protein molecules. Bioinformatics is very much involved in making sense of protein such an array where it helps in statistically analyzing large amount of data in the databases. Protien analysis remains one of the most difficult areas in biology and informatics is now helping to resolve quite a few issues.
- Analysis of mutations in cancer
The variety of genes in cancer has made newer sequencing algorithms to be developed. The volume of data hence produced makes it mandatory to use automated systems to read it and compare the sequencing results to the known sequence of the human genome. In this direction, the Hidden Markov model and change-point analysis methods are being.
Bioinformatics Software
There are various softwares being used today in bioinformatics. Some of them are given below:
- In the field of protein and DNA sequencing, The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST). This is provided by NCBI.
- Bioinformatic information can also be had from search engines such as Entrez and Bioinformatic Harvester that search in several databases.
- Certain open-source software such as EMBOSS, Bioconductor, BioPerl, BioLinux, BioPython, BioRuby, and BioJava also exist making bioinformatics easier.
- Quantum 3.1 applies quantum and molecular physics instead of statistical methods.
- SOAP-based interfaces from the EBI at EBI Web Serviceshave been developed for bioinformatics applications exlusively.
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