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A structural gene is a gene that codes for any RNA or protein product other than a regulatory factor (i.e. regulatory protein).A term derived from the lac operon, structural genes are typically viewed as those containing sequences of DNA corresponding to the amino acids of a protein that will be produced, as long as said protein does not function to regulate gene expression.
Structural genomics takes advantage of completed genome sequences in several ways in order to determine protein structures. The gene sequence of the target protein can also be compared to a known sequence and structural information can then be inferred from the known protein's structure.
Functional annotation of genes requires a controlled vocabulary (or ontology) to name the predicted functional features. However, because there are numerous ways to define gene functions, the annotation process may be hindered when it is performed by different research groups.
Gene structure is the organisation of specialised sequence elements within a gene. Genes contain most of the information necessary for living cells to survive and reproduce. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In most organisms, genes are made of DNA, where the particular DNA sequence determines the function of the gene.
This is the gene described in The Selfish Gene. [9] More thorough discussions of this version of a gene can be found in the articles Genetics and Gene-centered view of evolution. The molecular gene definition is more commonly used across biochemistry, molecular biology, and most of genetics—the gene that is described in terms of DNA sequence. [1]
The term structural has the same meaning as in structural biology, and structural bioinformatics can be seen as a part of computational structural biology. The main objective of structural bioinformatics is the creation of new methods of analysing and manipulating biological macromolecular data in order to solve problems in biology and generate ...
In the genomic branch of bioinformatics, homology is used to predict the function of a gene: if the sequence of gene A, whose function is known, is homologous to the sequence of gene B, whose function is unknown, one could infer that B may share A's function. In structural bioinformatics, homology is used to determine which parts of a protein ...
Efforts to understand how proteins are encoded began after DNA's structure was discovered in 1953. The key discoverers, English biophysicist Francis Crick and American biologist James Watson, working together at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, hypothesied that information flows from DNA and that there is a link between DNA and proteins. [2]