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Genetic Mutations

  GENETIC MUTATIONS Genetic mutations  are spontaneous changes occurring in the genetic material, (DNA) of an individual. Mutations can be passed to the next generations or may not, depending upon the type of cell in which they occur.       They can be harmful, beneficial or even neutral. Usually these are caused naturally but they can be caused by harmful radiations or chemicals or drugs etc. Somatic cell’s mutations do not pass to the offspring. While the mutations in germ line cells are hereditary. The term mutation was given by Devries in 1909. Types of Mutations Two most basic categories of mutations are: Point mutations These mutations are those occurring only at certain points in chromosomes or the genes if it. For example, insertion, deletion etc. Chromosomal mutation More sever class of mutations is chromosomal mutations. It includes deletion of one or set of chromosome, or may be more number of chromosomes is present in genome than normal numbers....

Databases for Biological Data

Databases for Biological Data Now that we understand the building blocks of biological data, let us take a look at the various online databases to store them: GenBank :  The GenBank  sequence database  is an  open-access , annotated collection of all publicly available  nucleotide  sequences and their  protein  translations. It is produced and maintained by the  National Center for Biotechnology Information  (NCBI; a part of the  National Institutes of Health  in the  United States ) as part of the  International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration  (INSDC). GenBank and its collaborators receive sequences produced in laboratories throughout the world from more than 100,000 distinct  organisms . The database was started in 1982 by  Walter Goad  and  Los Alamos National Laboratory . GenBank has become an important database for research in biological fields and has grown in recent years at...

Tutorial Blast (NCBI)

  Object:   Starting with an organism and a protein, find a protein sequence and gene coding region.   Example:  Find the protein sequence and gene coding region for pathogenicity factor   listeriolysin O  from the bacterium  Listeria monocytogenes .     Searching for gene and protein information   Begin the search in  Gene , because it has less redundancy than Protein (this same search in Protein retrieves over 1000 records).   Search:   Listeria monocytogenes[organism] AND listeriolysin O[ protein name]   (see  Searchable fields in Gene )     One record, for gene symbol  hly , is retrieved. It is associated with an NC_ accession number (specifying a complete genomic molecule that is usually a reference assembly; see  RefSeq accession numbers and molecule types ).   To find the  gene coding sequence , look at the  Genomic regions, transcripts, and products  section or th...