Week 2 Summary

In this second week, you have learnt about homology within protein sequences and how can this be used to infer their function. You can explain the concepts behind the powerful similarity search tool BLAST and use this tool to look for similar sequences in databases. You have learnt about primary and secondary databases and their important role in today’s biological research field. You can now use this secondary databases to find out conserved domains in protein sequences and infer function from sequence.

By the end of week 2, you can:

• Explain and use BLAST searches

• Name primary and secondary databases and explain the concept behind them

• Use secondary databases to find conserved domains and motifs in protein sequences

• Integrate this data to infer protein function from sequence.