4 - Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture

Nat~onal Workshop-cum-Training on Biolnformatics and Information Management In Aquaculture
DATA GENERATION RESOURCES FOR BIOINFORMATICS
1. Introduction
The biological information that is being generated by research in modern biology
worldwide is so huge that it is not possible to manage through conventional file
keeping or simple computing. Secondly, analysis of these data certainly needs
specific interfaces, software and management facilities. Therefore, requirement
to store, analyze and manage the biological information/data in an appropriate
way has led to the origin of a new branch of science called "Bioinformatics".
Here, emphasis will be given on the research disciplines that mostly generates
such data. Broadly, they can be classified as follows.
2. Genomics
Genomics deals with structural and functional analysis of genes in the genome.
Often it is described under two sub-disciplines namely structural and functional
genomics. Human genome was being expected to contain about 20 000 - 30 000
genes. The 15 years human genome project that got completed recently has
elucidated that there are about 25000 genes. The objective of this project was to
map and sequence all the genes in 23 pairs of chromosomes. The goals of the
project have been divided into smaller tasks, one of which is to develop genetic
linkage maps to establish markers on each of the 46 human chromosomes in
order to work on smaller and more clearly defined sectors in the search for
genes. A second task is to get a physical map of overlapping clones of large DNA
fragments that will span all the chromosomes. The map with the highest
resolution will show the location of genes or markers on the chromosomes as
measured by the number of DNA bases between them. The ultimate goal is to
get the entire DNA sequence of the human genome. The next challenge is to
identify the functions of these genes.
Now we can have access to individual genes with its structural details much
faster than ever before. Soon we will have an accurate function of all the genes.
Likewise, the genome sequences of more than fifty prokaryotic and eukaryotic
organisms have been completed. As said earlier, the primary goal of a mapping
program is to construct genetic linkage maps sufficient to identify either a
disease gene or chromosomal segments that harbor quantitative trait loci (QTL)
affecting traits of economic importance. The gene maps or genetic linkage maps
of almost all the domestic animals and several model organisms have been
completed. Further, comparison of this information with closely related phyletic
groups builds the comparative genomics data. Ultimately, the information those
are generated in the internet are in the form of database and they include
enormous DNA sequence, genetic-, physical- and comparative maps and so on
for bioinformatics application.
1
Comnpondence: P. Das, Scnlor Sclentist, Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture; Kausalyaganga. Bhubaneswar2;
Emall pdas77Qhotmail.com