Análise de regiões intergênicas de escherichia coli utilizando ferramentas computacionais

Abstract

Genes are segments of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule that contain information related to the metabolic functions necessary for the survival of an organism. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate gene expression and to identify these factors contributes to the understanding of the function of genes in different species. The gene transcription process begins in bacteria through interactions between RNA polymerase enzyme and specific regions of DNA called promoters, which interact with different factors σ, act as key regulators of gene expression. Bioinformatics through computational tools has contributed generating inferences that help in understanding various biological phenomena, including the prediction of regulatory elements. Similarly, the growth of computational research has generated large amounts of data, requiring computational tools to be adapted for processing and obtaining results. Therefore, the present study was overall objective presented in the form of scientific articles, analysis around computational tools for analysis of intergenic regions of prokaryotes beings. The results show, using intergenic regions extracted from IntergenicDB, (i) verified the performance of computational promoter prediction tools available on the internet, (ii) using computational tools, presents a comparative analysis of intergenic regions of E. coli strains (commensal and pathogenic), relating the structure of the promoters with the pathogenic capacity and (iii) the development of the integration of sequence analysis tools whith IntergenicDB through creating a web service.