Earliest pages of bioinformatics.

E N Trifonov1

  • 1Department of Structural Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. edward.trifonov@weizmann.ac.il

Summary

This review outlines early bioinformatics history from DNA discovery in 1869 to massive sequencing in 1980-1981. Bioinformatics is defined as the study of molecular biology sequences and their information content.

Related Concept Videos

Genomics02:02

Genomics

Genomics is the science of genomes: it is the study of all the genetic material of an organism. In humans, the genome consists of information carried in 23 pairs of chromosomes in the nucleus, as well as mitochondrial DNA. In genomics, both coding and non-coding DNA is sequenced and analyzed. Genomics allows a better understanding of all living things, their evolution, and their diversity. It has a myriad of uses: for example, to build phylogenetic trees, to improve productivity and...
Protein Networks02:26

Protein Networks

An organism can have thousands of different proteins, and these proteins must cooperate to ensure the health of an organism. Proteins bind to other proteins and form complexes to carry out their functions. Many proteins interact with multiple other proteins creating a complex network of protein interactions.
These interactions can be represented through maps depicting protein-protein interaction networks, represented as nodes and edges. Nodes are circles that are representative of a protein,...
Synteny and Evolution02:31

Synteny and Evolution

John H. Renwick first coined the term “synteny” in 1971, which refers to the genes present on the same chromosomes, even if they are not genetically linked. The species with common ancestry tend to show conserved syntenic regions. Therefore, the concept of synteny is nowadays used to describe the evolutionary relationship between species.
Around 80 million years ago, the human and mice lineages diverged from the common ancestor. During the course of evolution, the ancestral chromosome underwent...
Protein Folding01:25

Protein Folding

Proteins are chains of amino acids linked together by peptide bonds. Upon synthesis, a protein folds into a three-dimensional conformation, critical to its biological function. Interactions between its constituent amino acids guide protein folding, and hence the protein structure is primarily dependent on its amino acid sequence.
Protein Structure Is Critical to Its Biological Function
Proteins perform a wide range of biological functions such as catalyzing chemical reactions, providing...
Protein Networks02:26

Protein Networks

An organism can have thousands of different proteins, and these proteins must cooperate to ensure the health of an organism. Proteins bind to other proteins and form complexes to carry out their functions. Many proteins interact with multiple other proteins creating a complex network of protein interactions.
These interactions can be represented through maps depicting protein-protein interaction networks, represented as nodes and edges. Nodes are circles that are representative of a protein,...
IP3/DAG Signaling Pathway01:11

IP3/DAG Signaling Pathway

Membrane lipids such as phosphatidylinositol (PI) are precursors for several membrane-bound and soluble second messengers. Specific kinases phosphorylate PI and produce phosphorylated inositol phospholipids. One such inositol phospholipids are the  phosphatidylinositol-4,5 bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2], present in the inner half of the lipid bilayer. Upon ligand binding, GPCR stimulates Gq proteins to turn on phospholipase Cꞵ. Activated phospholipase Cꞵ cleaves PI(4,5)P2 and produces two-second...