University Archives

Bioinformatics is the science of finding meaningful patterns within a large amount of biological data using computational tools.  In our bioinformatics course, we annotated bacteriophage genomes using computational tools such as NCBI BLAST, PECAAN, HHPred to find all of the protein-encoding genes in a finished phage genome sequence, determine exactly where these genes begin and end, and predict what function the phage proteins may have. Annotation is the process of documenting all of the decisions being made. This process allows us to determine whether predicted regions are true genes, determine accurate start sites, and assign the most probable functions. Throughout our work on Khan1, we were assigned to gene groups 49-56, 75-80, and 97-101. In genes 49-56, we identified a cluster involved in transcription, replication, recombination, and DNA repair. This group has predicted functions including lysins, DNA helicase activity, and exonuclease-like proteins, showing a role in DNA processing and host cell lysis. However, genes 75-80 and 97-103 have hypothetical proteins with no known function. Our final goal is to contribute our annotated genome sequence to a global database, which will influence future bioinformatics investigations.