Post on 29-Dec-2015
A brief Introduction to Bioinformatics
Y. SINGH
NELSON R. MANDELA SCHOOL OF MEDICINEDEPARTMENT OF TELEHEALTH
SINGHY@UKZN.AC.ZA
Content licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Learning Objectives
What is BioinformaticsWhy is it importantExamples of Bioinformatics applicationWhat is SequencingUses of Sequencing
Building Blocks of DNABases are the building blocks of DNADNA uses four different bases:
Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine & ThymineConnected by 2’-deoxy-ribose-
phosphate backbone
Information in DNA is Transferred to RNA & into Proteins
DNA (ACGT on deoxyribose backbone)
RNA (ACGU on ribose backbone)
Proteins (amino acids on peptide backbone)
Information in RNA Encodes Proteins
Triplets of RNA nucleotides encode 20 amino acids
8 essential amino acids
DNA Mutates
Mutations in DNA (changes in bases) can changes in amino acids can changes in proteins
Mutations can be:
Inherited: sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, susceptibility to some cancers (BRCA: breast cancer)
Acquired: some birth defects, leukemia, HIV resistance
Definition
Bioinformatics : applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, biochemistry etc
to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level
What can Bioinformatics do
sequence alignment,gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, predict products of gene expression protein-protein interactions,the modeling of evolution.
What can Bioinformatics do
sequence alignment,gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, predict products of gene expression protein-protein interactions,the modeling of evolution.
BIOAFICA:
http://www.bioafrica.net/rega-genotype/html/subtypinghiv.html
STANFORD HIV-DB: http://hivdb.stanford.edu/
Demonstration: Video Two
FINDING SIMILARITIESHTTP://WWW.EBI.AC.UK/TOOLS/CLUSTALW2/INDEX.HTML
HTTP://WWW.NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV/SITES/ENTREZ?DB=PROTEIN&CMD=SEARCH
Implications for clinical informatics
Sequence information in medical recordsNew diagnostic and prognostic information
sourcesEthical considerations