2. Table of Contents
● Definition
● Recent History
● Basics
● Applications
3. Definition
Wikipedia:
Bioinformatics an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and
software tools for understanding biological data. As an
interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combines
computer science, statistics, mathematics and engineering to
study and process biological data.1
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics
4. Basics
● What is a cell and how does it work?
The nucleus
Mitochondrion
The lysosome
ER - Electroplasmatic reticulum
The DNA
Ribosome
http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intromethodscellbiology/cellfig10.jpg
Cytoplasm
mRNA
5. Basics
● Genetics
o 1953 Watson & Crick uncovered DNA α-helix structure
o ~ 3’000’000’000 base pairs in human genome
o living organisms inherit their genetic properties from
their parents
o Molecular clock hypothesis
o Through comparing DNA in an alignment we can
deduce a similarity measure and a common ancestor
6. Basics
o DNA is packed very tightly
o Genetic Code - 3 bases code for one amino-acid
o Hundreds of amino-acids code for one protein
29lifescience.wikispaces.com/file/view/ChromosomeStructure.jpg/57692504/659x261/ChromosomeStructure.jpg
7. Basics
● Translation from mRNA to a protein
The nucleus
Mitochondrion
The lysosome
ER - Electroplasmatic reticulum
The DNA
Ribosome
http://www.wormbook.org/chapters/www_intromethodscellbiology/cellfig10.jpg
Cytoplasm
mRNA
11. Recent History
● 1978 - Nussinov Algorithm
● 2000 - Human Genome Project
● 2010 - 1000 Genomes Project
● 2014 - First time synthesis of an
artificial yeast chromosome
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/291/5507/F1.medium.gif
12. Applications
● Sequence:
o Phylogeny
o Gene Finding
● Structure:
o Drug Design
o Protein Dynamics
● Systems:
o Microarrays
o Protein Network Inference
13. Applications - Phylogeny
● DNA Sequence
similarities
● (Re-)construct the
evolutionary history
● Problem: Multiple
Sequence Alignment
Phylogenetic Tree of Life
14. Applications - Phylogeny
● Example:
o Given a set of taxa X={x1,x2,...,xn} and a distance function d(xi,xj),
reconstruct an evolutionary tree
1 2
4
5
3
8
9
6 7
1 2 3 4 5
UPGMA
15. Applications - Drug Design
● What is Drug Design?
o Design:
Deliberate creative act
o Drug Design:
Design of a drug for a specific (medical) application
16. Applications - Drug Design
● Key question:
What to put into a pill?
● Problem: Molecular dynamics and optimization
17. Applications - Drug Design
● Drug Discovery Pipeline
Biol.
Data
Target ID Lead ID Optimization Testing Approval
Accelerated by
Bioinformatics
19. Applications - Microarrays
● Samples labeled
o Experimental
o Control
o When same expression
level:
Yellow
https://genome.unc.edu/images/microarray.jpg
20. Applications - PPIs
● Combining multiple
experiments to a graph
● Problem:
Network Inference
21. Applications
● Solution to high complexity / runtime problems:
Use heuristical methods and dynamic programming
● Metropolis Monte Carlo
● => Blast
25. Applications
● How hard / complex are these
problems?
● Multiple Sequence Alignment:
o NP-complete - O(length#sequences)
● Molecular Dynamics simulation:
o naive scales O(#particles2)
Notes de l'éditeur
Simple Model of a cell - a lot of things going on in different parts of the cell and what kind of cell we are looking at
Care most about Nucleus with DNA, Ribosomes and Cytoplasm
on the right is a less simplified version of a cell
1869 dicovered nuclein in Tuebingen, 1953 Watson and Crick
Next: History
Simple Model of a cell - a lot of things going on in different parts of the cell and what kind of cell we are looking at
Care most about Nucleus with DNA, Ribosomes and Cytoplasm
on the right is a less simplified version of a cell
Simple Model of a cell - a lot of things going on in different parts of the cell and what kind of cell we are looking at
Care most about Nucleus with DNA, Ribosomes and Cytoplasm
on the right is a less simplified version of a cell
Simple Model of a cell - a lot of things going on in different parts of the cell and what kind of cell we are looking at
Care most about Nucleus with DNA, Ribosomes and Cytoplasm
on the right is a less simplified version of a cell
Simple Model of a cell - a lot of things going on in different parts of the cell and what kind of cell we are looking at
Care most about Nucleus with DNA, Ribosomes and Cytoplasm
on the right is a less simplified version of a cell
Human Genome Project 300 Mio $ - 13 years - new technologies have emerged and we are even able to replicate an artificial yeast chromosome - next: Applications
MSA - length#sequences complexity,
Clustering problem, reconstruction of trees - NEXT Another application of Bioinformatics
NP-complete problem - Dynamic Programming to the rescue
Disease we want to cure, like a special kind of cancer. Target is a special cancer supressor protein p53, examine possible substances that increase effectiveness of p53 - try to optimize them
10 - 15 years and costs of up to 870 Million US$ - NEXT Application Microarrays