Unit IV

Bioinformatics
 Introduction

 Bioinformatics is the application of computer technology to get the information that's stored in certain
types of biological data. Bioinformatics provides central, globally accessible databases that enable
scientists to submit, search and analyze information.. It is an interdisciplinary field, which harnesses
computer science, mathematics, physics, and biology
 Bioinformatics is an integrative field in life sciences that combines biology and information
technology. Its application includes the study of molecular sequences and genomics data. ... In
simpler terms, bioinformatics involves the application of computer technology to manage large
volumes of biological information.
 It offers analysis software for data studies and comparisons and provides tools for modelling, visualizing,
exploring and interpreting data. The main goal is to convert a multitude of complex data into useful
information and knowledge.
 Bioinformatics approaches are used to understand the function of genes, the regulation of cells, drug
target selection, drug design, and disease. Without quantitative analysis of the massive amounts of
biological data generated by various systems, biology and -omics data cannot be interpreted or exploited.

 Useful in genetic engineering

Various Fields of Bioinformatics

 Bioinformatics is being used in following fields:

 Microbial genome applications
 Molecular medicine
 Personalised medicine
 Preventative medicine
 Gene therapy
 Drug development
 Antibiotic resistance
 Evolutionary studies
 Waste cleanup
 Biotechnology
 Climate change Studies
 Alternative energy sources
 Crop improvement
 Forensic analysis
 Bio-weapon creation
 Insect resistance
 Improve nutritional quality
 Development of Drought resistant varieties
 Vetinary Science
Objectives of Bioinformatics

 The main goals of Bioinformatics are

 (1) to manage data in such a way that it allows easy access to the existing
information and to submit new entries as they are produced;
 (2) to develop technological tools that help analyze biological data
 (3) to use these tools to analyze the data and interpret the results from the data
 SCOPE
 Medical Applications:
1.Understand life processes in healthy and disease state
2. Genetic disease

 Pharmaceutical and biotech Industry

1. To find (develop) new and better drugs

2. Gene based or structure based drug design

 Agricultural Applications
1. Disease, drought resistance plants
2. Higher yield crops
Biological databases
 1. Primary databases
• Primary databases contain original biological data and are also called as archieval
database.
• They are populated with experimentally derived data such as nucleotide sequence,
protein sequence or macromolecular structure.
• Experimental results are submitted directly into the database by researchers, and the
data are essentially archival in nature.
• Once given a database accession number, the data in primary databases are never
changed: they form part of the scientific record.
 Examples
• ENA, GenBank and DDBJ (nucleotide sequence)
• Array Express Archive and GEO (functional genomics data)
• Protein Data Bank (PDB; coordinates of three-dimensional macromolecular
structures)
 2. Secondary databases
• Secondary databases comprise data derived from the results of analysing primary data.
• Secondary databases often draw upon information from numerous sources, including
other databases (primary and secondary), controlled vocabularies and the scientific
literature.
• They are highly curated, often using a complex combination of computational
algorithms and manual analysis and interpretation to derive new knowledge from the
public record of science.
 Examples
• InterPro (protein families, motifs and domains)
• UniProt Knowledgebase (sequence and functional information on proteins)
• Ensembl (variation, function, regulation and more layered onto whole genome
sequences)
3)Specialized databases

 There are also specialized databases are those that cater to a

particular research interest. For example, Flybase, HIV sequence
database, and Ribosomal Database Project are databases that
specialize in a particular organism or a particular type of data
databases

• 1000 Genomes Browser. ...

• BLAST. ...
• ClinVar. ...
• dbSNP. ...
• dbVar. ...
• dbGaP. ...
• Gene. ...
• Genome.
 Goals of Bioinformatics
 Development and implementation of computer programs that enable
efficient access to, management and use of, various types of information
 Development of new algorithms(mathematical formulas)and statistical
measures that assess relationships among members of large data sets. For
example, there are methods to locate a gene within a sequence, to predict protein
structure and/or function, and to cluster protein sequences into families of related
sequences
 Bioinformatics now entails the creation and advancement of databases,
algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and theory to solve formal
and practical problems arising from the management and analysis of biological
data.
 Vaccination

 Vaccine has major impact on disease associated mortality reduction and

population growth .
 The development and production of vaccine takes several years .
 But with the help of bioinformatic tool we can shorten the timeline
 The role of bioinformatics in drug and vaccine
development
 Vaccines are the pharmaceutical products that offer the best cost‐benefit ratio in the prevention or
treatment of diseases. In that a vaccine is a pharmaceutical product, vaccine development and
production are costly and it takes years for this to be accomplished. Several approaches have been
applied to reduce the times and costs of vaccine development, mainly focusing on the selection of
appropriate antigens or antigenic structures, carriers
 A large amount of data can be analyzed by Bioinformatics to come up with a hypothesis that can
be further validated in the laboratory by doing experiments. Instead of doing a bunch of
experiments without a clear goal, a few can be tested as predicted by Bioinformatics by analyzing
the available data. That way a researcher can save a lot of money and manpower, and also results
can be obtained quickly.
 In the current COVID-19 crisis also Bioinformatics is playing a crucial role by predicting suitable
drugs against viral targets and subsequently these are now being tested in the laboratory for
validation.