Impact Factor In Genomics
Genomics also involves the
sequencing and analysis of genomes through uses of high throughput DNA
sequencing and
bioinformatics to assemble and analyze the function and structure of entire genomes. Advances in
genomics have triggered a revolution in discovery-based research and
systems biology to facilitate understanding of even the most complex biological systems such as the brain. The field also includes studies of intragenomic (within the genome)
phenomena such as epistasis (effect of one
gene on another), pleiotropy (one
gene affecting more than one trait), heterosis (hybrid vigour), and other interactions between loci and alleles within the
genome In addition to his seminal work on the amino acid sequence of insulin, Frederick Sanger and his colleagues played a key role in the development of DNA
sequencing techniques that enabled the establishment of comprehensive
genome sequencing projects. In 1975, he and Alan Coulson published a
sequencing procedure using DNA polymerase with radiolabelled nucleotides that he called the Plus and Minus technique. This involved two closely related methods that generated short oligonucleotides with defined 3' termini. These could be fractionated by
electrophoresis on a polyacrylamide gel (called polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) and visualised using autoradiography. The procedure could sequence up to 80 nucleotides in one go and was a big improvement, but was still very laborious. Nevertheless, in 1977 his group was able to sequence most of the 5,386 nucleotides of the single-stranded bacteriophage φX174, completing the first fully sequenced DNA-based genome. The refinement of the Plus and Minus method resulted in the chain-termination, or Sanger method (see below), which formed the basis of the techniques of DNA sequencing,
genome mapping, data storage, and bioinformatic analysis most widely used in the following quarter-century of research. In the same year Walter Gilbert and Allan Maxam of Harvard University independently developed the Maxam-Gilbert method (also known as the chemical method) of DNA sequencing, involving the preferential cleavage of DNA at known bases, a less efficient method.
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