Bioinformatics For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Where to Find Bioinformatics Data

Bioinformatics combines information technology and molecular biology, so it makes sense that the Internet is the main arena for pursuing bioinformatics information. The following list offers links to helpful Web sites around the world and the areas that they specialize in:

• Ensembl: The Human Genome

• GenBank/DDBJ/EMBL: Nucleotide sequence

• PubMed: Literature references

• Swiss Institiute of Bioinformatics: Annotated protein sequences

• InterProScan: Protein domains

• OMIM: Genetic diseases

• GenomeNet: Metabolic pathways

Bioinformatics Web Sites for Analyzing DNA/RNA Sequences

The bioinformatics Web sites in the following list offer help in analyzing DNA and RNA sequences. And, in the marriage of information technology and molecular biology that is bioinformatics, this type of analysis is what it’s all about.

• Webcutter: Restriction map

• GenomeScan: Gene discovery

• blastn, tblastn, blastx: Database search

• The Genome Browser: Browse the ultimate data!

• Mfold: RNA structure prediction

Bioinformatics Web Sites for Analyzing Protein Sequences

With bioinformatics you can explore molecular biology using information technology. The links to the Web sites in the following list focus on protein sequences. Some offer searchable databases, others help you investigate a single protein; all are helpful:

• BLAST: Database homology search

• SRS: Database search

• Entrez: Database search

• InterProScan: Find protein domains

• ExPASy: Analyze a protein

• ClustalW: Multiple sequence alignment

• T-Coffee: Evaluate multiple alignment

• Jalview: Multiple alignment editor

• PSIPRED: Secondary structure prediction

• Cn3D: Display and spin 3-D structures

Bioinformatics Data Formats

When you’re using the Internet to help with your bioinformatics project, you come across data in all sorts of different formats. The following table can help you understand common bioinformatics formats and what you can and cannot do with them.