Bioinformatics tools for marine biotechnology: a practical tutorial with a metagenomic approach.
BMC Bioinformatics
; 21(Suppl 10): 348, 2020 Aug 21.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32838733
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Bioinformatics has pervaded all fields of biology and has become an indispensable tool for almost all research projects. Although teaching bioinformatics has been incorporated in all traditional life science curricula, practical hands-on experiences in tight combination with wet-lab experiments are needed to motivate students.RESULTS:
We present a tutorial that starts from a practicalproblem:
finding novel enzymes from marine environments. First, we introduce the idea of metagenomics, a recent approach that extends biotechnology to non-culturable microbes. We presuppose that a probe for the screening of metagenomic cosmid library is needed. The students start from the chemical structure of the substrate that should be acted on by the novel enzyme and end with the sequence of the probe. To attain their goal, they discover databases such as BRENDA and programs such as BLAST and Clustal Omega. Students' answers to a satisfaction questionnaire show that a multistep tutorial integrated into a research wet-lab project is preferable to conventional lectures illustrating bioinformatics tools.CONCLUSION:
Experimental biologists can better operate basic bioinformatics if a problem-solving approach is chosen.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Biotecnologia
/
Biologia Computacional
/
Metagenômica
/
Biologia Marinha
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMC Bioinformatics
Assunto da revista:
INFORMATICA MEDICA
Ano de publicação:
2020
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Itália