Structural and Functional Characterization of Gene Products Encoded in the Human Genome by Homology Detection

Abstract

SummaryAvailability of the human genome data has enabled the exploration of a huge amount of biological information encoded in it. There are extensive ongoing experimental efforts to understand the biological functions of the gene products encoded in the human genome. However, computational analysis can aid immensely in the interpretation of biological function by associating known functional/structural domains to the human proteins. In this article we have discussed the implications of such associations. The association of structural domains to human proteins could help in prioritizing the targets for structure determination in the structural genomics initiatives. The protein kinase family is one of the most frequently occurring protein domain families in the human proteome while P-loop hydrolase, which comprises many GTPases and ATPases, is a highly represented superfamily. Using the superfamily relationships between families of unknown and known structures we could increase structural information content of the human genome by about 5%. We could also make new associations of domain families to 33 human proteins that are potentially linked to genetically inherited diseases.

Developing of the Computer Method for Annotation of Bacterial Genes

“…The bacterial genes computer annotation is based on one main principle: if two sequences are similar, the probability of their biological functions being similar is very high. This idea underlies all of the currently used mathematical annotation methods [ 7 , 8 ] of which the most widespread are those based on the heuristic similarity search algorithm, multiple sequence alignment, hidden Markov model (HMM), and complex systems combining several methods. These methods were used to assign functions to nearly 60% of sequenced bacterial genes, while around 40% are not yet characterized.…”