Intellectual Property & Your Health Series - The data of bioinformatics

Shidonna Raven
Jun 9
2 min read

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

Before you go to the Doctor!

The data of bioinformatics

The classic data of bioinformatics include DNA sequences of genes or full genomes; amino acid sequences of proteins; and three-dimensional structures of proteins, nucleic acids and protein–nucleic acid complexes. Additional “-omics” data streams include: transcriptomics, the pattern of RNA synthesis from DNA; proteomics, the distribution of proteins in cells; interactomics, the patterns of protein-protein and protein–nucleic acid interactions; and metabolomics, the nature and traffic patterns of transformations of small molecules by the biochemical pathways active in cells. In each case there is interest in obtaining comprehensive, accurate data for particular cell types and in identifying patterns of variation within the data. For example, data may fluctuate depending on cell type, timing of data collection (during the cell cycle, or diurnal, seasonal, or annual variations), developmental stage, and various external conditions. Metagenomics and metaproteomics extend these measurements to a comprehensive description of the organisms in an environmental sample, such as in a bucket of ocean water or in a soil sample.

Bioinformatics has been driven by the great acceleration in data-generation processes in biology. Genome sequencing methods show perhaps the most dramatic effects. In 1999 the nucleic acid sequence archives contained a total of 3.5 billion nucleotides, slightly more than the length of a single human genome; a decade later they contained more than 283 billion nucleotides, the length of about 95 human genomes. The U.S. National Institutes of Health has challenged researchers by setting a goal to reduce the cost of sequencing a human genome to $1,000; this would make DNA sequencing a more affordable and practical tool for U.S. hospitals and clinics, enabling it to become a standard component of diagnosis.