Seminar by Prof. Arvind Bansal
Comparative Genomics and its Applications
Prof. Arvind Bansal
Kent State University
Ohio, USA
Date: Wed, Nov 03, 2004
Time: 3:00 PM
Venue: CS-101
Abstract
With the availability of genomes of so many pathogenic bacterial and eukaryotic (including human) genomes, many interesting questions regarding pathogenicity can be asked. For example, one may find out what genes/domains are present (absent) in pathogenic strains, how the pathways of pathogenic strains are different, how the metabolic pathways or signaling pathways are regulated, and how host and pathogens interact. Fortunately, comparative genomics can derive new information and integrate with existing wet lab data to derive many new information which could help in answering these pathogenicity related question. In this talk the author will present his work (techniques, graph based algorithm, and results) on comparative genomics to identify functionally similar genes and gene clusters, and explain the algorithms and techniques to automatically derive metabolic pathways and their variations. Results will be presented from the automated derivation of pathways of Mycoplasma tuberculosis (commonly known as tuberculosis), and Helicobacter pylori.Briefly, the technique is based upon the identifying and reconciling functionally similar genes, co-transcribed gene clusters, and co-regulated gene-clusters using graph based algorithms. The implication of application of such tools in vaccine development and antibiotics and anti bacterial agents will be discussed. The talk will be delivered in two parts: the first part will describe algorithms for genome comparison and genomic discovery, and the second part will show application of the data to prediction of pathways, algorithms for pathway prediction, pathway variations, and comparison of genomes with with plasmids.