Learning objectives
The course provides an exhaustive survey of the main applications of Bioinformatics in the sequence analysis of DNA and proteins with particular emphasis to the sequence analysis and molecular evolution tools suitable for deciphering unannotated functions in completely sequenced genomes.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
<p>Biological Databases: structure and Retrieval Systems<br />
Homology and Similarity. Pairwise alignment of biological sequences. Algorithms and substitution matrices used to perform global and local alignments. Multiple sequence alignment. Statistical evaluation of the similarity search results.<br />
Molecular Evolution. Methods for the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees and for the evaluation of their statistical significance. Applications on genes and genomes.<br />
Linguistic analysis of Biosequences. Search for DNA motifs. Differential use of synonymous codons in protein coding genes and its functional meaning. Optimization of heterologous gene expression by modulation of the codon usage. Gene Finding Methods: identification of ORFs, exons/introns and promoters.<br />
Genome analysis: from genome sequencing to the transcriptome analysis. Repetitive sequences in the eukaryotic genome and mobile genetic elements. Identifications of non coding RNA <br />
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Full programme
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Bibliography
AM Lesk, Introduzione alla Bioinformatica, McGraw-Hill<br />
G. Valle, M. Helmer Citterich, M. Attimonelli, G. Pesole "Introduzione alla Bioinformatica", Zanichelli Ed.
Teaching methods
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Assessment methods and criteria
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Other information
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