Bioinformatics of DNA [Scanning the Issue]

Lenwood Heath

Abstract

This special issue introduces current developments in bioinformatics, the use of computational techniques in the service of the life sciences, in the specific context of the analysis and interpretation of DNA molecules, where DNA is the primary informational molecule of all life. To fully appreciate the papers in this issue, some background knowledge in biology is required. The DNA in a cell is organized into a genome consisting of one or more chromosomes, each of which is a DNA molecule, which can be thought of as a long string over the alphabet of nucleotides, A, C, G, and T. Within a DNA string or sequence are substrings that are genes that normally encode the recipe for the functional proteins in the cell. The human genome is organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes, one maternal and one paternal chromosome set, containing a total of approximately six billion nucleotides. Amazingly, all ~1 trillion cells in one’s body, of diverse form and function, contain the same “molecular blueprint” with a near perfect copy of their genome.