BLAST – Basic Local Alignment Search Tool
In this article, you will learn about BLAST, a tool used to find similar sequences in biological databases. What is a BLAST? BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) is one …
Course: Bacterial Genomes I: From DNA to Protein Function Using Bioinformatics
Primary Databases
In this article, you will learn about primary databases and their importance in storing and making sequence data available. Primary databases (also known as data repositories) are highly organised, user-friendly …
What is a FASTA file?
In this article, you will learn the most basic format for the storage of DNA and protein sequences, the FASTA file. FASTA File for DNA Sequence Data DNA sequence data …
From DNA to Protein
In this article we will describe how a protein sequence is generated from a DNA sequence. Biological Transcription In biological systems, the process of transcription ‘transcribes’ (copies) DNA into RNA. …
FAQs for this course
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions for this course. This step will be linked back from the relevant steps and you can always get back to it later What is …
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to all those who are and were involved in the Bacterial genomes: From DNA to Protein Function using Bioinfomatics Course’s development, refinements, and presentations. Lead Educators and Developers …
What is the correct way to cite databases?
In this article, we emphasise the correct way in which to cite the work of others in bioinformatics. Just as it is important to record citations for the literature we …
Interview with Dr Rob Finn, Team Leader of EMBL-EBI Sequence Families Group
In this interview, Anna interviews Dr Rob Finn, who explains how protein families are classified computationally and how this outcome is beneficial for research on any organism.
Other protein databases: Pfam, Interpro and Phobius
In this Step you will learn about other protein databases that are useful in our search for protein function. Two of the most popular secondary databases recognise conserved protein domains …
UNIPROT – the protein database
In this short article, you will learn about the protein database UniProt. Uniprot was originally formulated as a primary database for protein sequences and functional annotation based on experimental evidence. …
Secondary databases
In this Step, you will learn about biological databases, building on the primary databases that were discussed in Week 1. Biological databases are centralised resources that contain representations of DNA …
Use of BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool)
In this video tutorial we demonstrate the use of the similarity search engine BLAST, hosted by NCBI. BLAST is a powerful tool used to search a database of DNA or …
DIY BLAST. Part 1 – Step-by-step
In this article, you will learn how to do a BLAST search. You will be guided in a step-by-step manner through the process of submitting a BLAST search using the …
Similar is not the same but it helps!
In this article you will be introduced to the concept of homology annotation, a way to identify sequences that are similar to one another. Imagine that you have never seen …
What you have learnt in this course
We hope you have enjoyed your time with us. During the length of this two-week course you have become familiar with DNA and protein sequences and how to represent them …
These articles are from the online course:
Bacterial Genomes I: From DNA to Protein Function Using Bioinformatics