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Protein engineering is the process of developing useful or valuable proteins. It is a young discipline, with much research taking place into the understanding of protein folding and recognition for protein design principles. It has been used to improve the function of many enzymes for industrial catalysis. It is also a product and services market, with an estimated value of $168 billion by 2017.
In bioinformatics, sequence analysis is the process of subjecting a DNA, RNA or peptide sequence to any of a wide range of analytical methods to understand its features, function, structure, or evolution. Methodologies used include sequence alignment, searches against biological databases, and others.
A contig is a set of overlapping DNA segments that together represent a consensus region of DNA. In bottom-up sequencing projects, a contig refers to overlapping sequence data (reads); in top-down sequencing projects, contig refers to the overlapping clones that form a physical map of the genome that is used to guide sequencing and assembly. Contigs can thus refer both to overlapping DNA sequences and to overlapping physical segments (fragments) contained in clones depending on the context.
A cloning vector is a small piece of DNA that can be stably maintained in an organism, and into which a foreign DNA fragment can be inserted for cloning purposes. The cloning vector may be DNA taken from a virus, the cell of a higher organism, or it may be the plasmid of a bacterium. The vector contains features that allow for the convenient insertion of a DNA fragment into the vector or its removal from the vector, for example through the presence of restriction sites. The vector and the foreign DNA may be treated with a restriction enzyme that cuts the DNA, and DNA fragments thus generated contain either blunt ends or overhangs known as sticky ends, and vector DNA and foreign DNA with compatible ends can then be joined together by molecular ligation. After a DNA fragment has been cloned into a cloning vector, it may be further subcloned into another vector designed for more specific use.
Site-directed mutagenesis is a molecular biology method that is used to make specific and intentional mutating changes to the DNA sequence of a gene and any gene products. Also called site-specific mutagenesis or oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis, it is used for investigating the structure and biological activity of DNA, RNA, and protein molecules, and for protein engineering.
A DNA construct is an artificially-designed segment of DNA borne on a vector that can be used to incorporate genetic material into a target tissue or cell. A DNA construct contains a DNA insert, called a transgene, delivered via a transformation vector which allows the insert sequence to be replicated and/or expressed in the target cell. This gene can be cloned from a naturally occurring gene, or synthetically constructed. The vector can be delivered using physical, chemical or viral methods. Typically, the vectors used in DNA constructs contain an origin of replication, a multiple cloning site, and a selectable marker. Certain vectors can carry additional regulatory elements based on the expression system involved.
Genetics, a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms.
A restriction digest is a procedure used in molecular biology to prepare DNA for analysis or other processing. It is sometimes termed DNA fragmentation. Hartl and Jones describe it this way:
This enzymatic technique can be used for cleaving DNA molecules at specific sites, ensuring that all DNA fragments that contain a particular sequence at a particular location have the same size; furthermore, each fragment that contains the desired sequence has the sequence located at exactly the same position within the fragment. The cleavage method makes use of an important class of DNA-cleaving enzymes isolated primarily from bacteria. These enzymes are called restriction endonucleases or restriction enzymes, and they are able to cleave DNA molecules at the positions at which particular short sequences of bases are present.
A molecular-weight size marker, also referred to as a protein ladder, DNA ladder, or RNA ladder, is a set of standards that are used to identify the approximate size of a molecule run on a gel during electrophoresis, using the principle that molecular weight is inversely proportional to migration rate through a gel matrix. Therefore, when used in gel electrophoresis, markers effectively provide a logarithmic scale by which to estimate the size of the other fragments.
BioBrick parts are DNA sequences which conform to a restriction-enzyme assembly standard. These building blocks are used to design and assemble larger synthetic biological circuits from individual parts and combinations of parts with defined functions, which would then be incorporated into living cells such as Escherichia coli cells to construct new biological systems. Examples of BioBrick parts include promoters, ribosomal binding sites (RBS), coding sequences and terminators.
Artificial gene synthesis, or simply gene synthesis, refers to a group of methods that are used in synthetic biology to construct and assemble genes from nucleotides de novo. Unlike DNA synthesis in living cells, artificial gene synthesis does not require template DNA, allowing virtually any DNA sequence to be synthesized in the laboratory. It comprises two main steps, the first of which is solid-phase DNA synthesis, sometimes known as DNA printing. This produces oligonucleotide fragments that are generally under 200 base pairs. The second step then involves connecting these oligonucleotide fragments using various DNA assembly methods. Because artificial gene synthesis does not require template DNA, it is theoretically possible to make a completely synthetic DNA molecule with no limits on the nucleotide sequence or size.
UGENE is computer software for bioinformatics. It works on personal computer operating systems such as Windows, macOS, or Linux. It is released as free and open-source software, under a GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
The Staden Package is computer software, a set of tools for DNA sequence assembly, editing, and sequence analysis. It is open-source software, released under a BSD 3-clause license.
Gene Designer is a computer software package for bioinformatics. It is used by molecular biologists from academia, government, and the pharmaceutical, chemical, agricultural, and biotechnology industries to design, clone, and validate genetic sequences. It is proprietary software, released as freeware needing registration.
Molecular cloning is a set of experimental methods in molecular biology that are used to assemble recombinant DNA molecules and to direct their replication within host organisms. The use of the word cloning refers to the fact that the method involves the replication of one molecule to produce a population of cells with identical DNA molecules. Molecular cloning generally uses DNA sequences from two different organisms: the species that is the source of the DNA to be cloned, and the species that will serve as the living host for replication of the recombinant DNA. Molecular cloning methods are central to many contemporary areas of modern biology and medicine.
In metagenomics, binning is the process of grouping reads or contigs and assigning them to individual genome. Binning methods can be based on either compositional features or alignment (similarity), or both.
Golden Gate Cloning or Golden Gate assembly is a molecular cloning method that allows a researcher to simultaneously and directionally assemble multiple DNA fragments into a single piece using Type IIS restriction enzymes and T4 DNA ligase. This assembly is performed in vitro. Most commonly used Type IIS enzymes include BsaI, BsmBI, and BbsI.
Vector NTI was a commercial bioinformatics software package used by many life scientists in the early 2000s to work, among other things, with nucleic acids and proteins in silico. It allowed researchers to, for example, plan a DNA cloning experiment on the computer before actually performing it in the lab.
Synthetic genome is a synthetically built genome whose formation involves either genetic modification on pre-existing life forms or artificial gene synthesis to create new DNA or entire lifeforms. The field that studies synthetic genomes is called synthetic genomics.
DNADynamo is a commercial DNA sequence analysis software package produced by Blue Tractor Software Ltd that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux It is used by molecular biologists to analyze DNA and Protein sequences. A free demo is available from the software developers website.
References
- ↑ "MacVector: an integrated sequence analysis program for the Macintosh". Olson SA. Methods Mol Biol. (1994) 25,195-201.
- ↑ "DNA Sequencing Software - Special Ad Section". Science. 7 June 1996.
- ↑ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb197/is_/ai_n5566980#%5B%5D
- ↑ "About Accelrys, including company leadership, recognition, and news". Accelrys.com. 2009-05-04. Archived from the original on 2010-01-09. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
- ↑ "Accelrys - Additional Products". accelrys.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-07. Retrieved 2012-07-24.