Structural Bioinformatics and Proteomics

Structural Bioinformatics and Proteomics

Structural biology determines the 3-D shape of a protein letting us know how a protein functions and the role it plays within a cell. Bioinformatics data is derived from structural determination experiments which provide biological researchers to ask a variety of questions and allowing them to understand how DNA mutations might alter a protein’s shape, disrupt a catalytic site, or alter the binding affinity of a pharmaceutical compound. Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteomes. A proteome is a set of proteins produced in an organism, system, or biological context. The proteome differs from cell to cell and changes over time. The protein activity is also modulated by many factors in addition to the expression level of the relevant gene. Several high-throughput technologies have been developed to investigate proteomes in depth like mass spectrometry-based techniques and gel-based techniques.