Practical Bioinformatics / Edition 1

by Michael Agostino

Overview

Practical Bioinformatics is specifically designed for biology majors, with a heavy emphasis on the steps required to perform bioinformatics analysis to answer biological questions. It is written for courses that have a practical, hands-on element and contains many exercises (for example, database searches, protein analysis, data interpretation) to complement the straightforward and practical topics. The chapters are focused on DNA, RNA, and protein sequence analysis—frequently performed subsets of the field of bioinformatics—taking the reader through the commonly asked question “what can I learn about this sequence?”

A special note to established scientists: new genomic sequences are being published at an accelerating pace. Although new technology has led to unprecedented accuracy of the sequence, incomplete and challenging assemblies along with imperfect predictive methods are still generating gene models that require verification. With the sequence analysis skills learned from this book, features such as missing exons and incorrect termini can be easily recognized and more accurate gene models can be constructed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815344568
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/26/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 10.80(h) x 2.10(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis
2. Introduction to Internet Resources
3. Introduction to the BLAST suite and BLASTN
4. Protein BLAST: BLASTP
5. Cross-Molecular Searches: BLASTX and TBLASTN
6. Advanced Topics in BLAST
7. Bioinformatics Tools for the Laboratory
8. Protein Analysis
9. Explorations of Short Nucleotide Sequences
10. MicroRNAs and Pathway Analysis
11. Multiple Sequence Alignments
12. Browsing the Genome

A sample chapter and detailed table of contents are available at www.garlandscience.com/practical-bioinformatics.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Jacalyn M. Green, Ph.D. (Midwestern University)
Description: This well-written book, replete with helpful illustrations, provides a valuable introduction to the field of bioinformatics.
Purpose: Through 12 chapters in which readers are taken step-by-step through various exercises, this book provides a foundation on how to analyze DNA, RNA, and protein sequences using tools that are freely available on the Internet. While there are several other books on this topic, this one is probably the most accessible to the beginning student.
Audience: It is intended for undergraduate students in biology or biochemistry. It also will be extremely useful for scientists whose biological training predated the Internet or for scientists in related disciplines who develop an interest in bioinformatics. With a background in both academia and in industry, the author has worked in the field of bioinformatics for over 20 years.
Features: This book is truly practical in that one can read it independently, performing the exercises on one's own computer, and learn how to do the BLAST searches, sequence alignments, and other fundamental bioinformatic analyses without additional assistance. Each chapter contains interesting sidebars that illustrate real-world applications, such as tracking animal migration through analysis of fecal DNA. Fundamental concepts that undergraduates need defined (and that other books may assume readers already knows) are defined here; the list of abbreviations and the glossary at the end of the book further assist in reader comprehension. There are many illustrations of computer screenshots to guide readers in following the directions. Each chapter ends with multiple exercises to provide ample practice. The genes and proteins are well chosen to not only illustrate the concept at hand, but also to maintain reader interest. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings for those who want to delve deeper.
Assessment: Well written and easy to follow, this book provides an excellent foundation for anyone interested in the analysis of nucleotide or amino acid sequences. It is well suited for the undergraduate classroom, as well as for those scientists new to the field of bioinformatics.

Doody's Review Service

This is one of the most well written and well organized books on bioinformatics that I have come across. The chapters and concepts are arranged in order of complexity and the writing is easy to understand. This is an excellent introductory book for bioinformatics, yet it contains enough detail to help both a serious researcher as well as a beginner in the field.” –Science Books & Film

"This textbook would be useful to any biologist, as its chapters span RNA sequencing to protein analysis to miRNA target prediction. It is hard to think of a database currently available online on which this text does not include a detailed tutorial....it made bioinformatics appealing to learn about, as some pages contained highlighted boxes of interesting facts about the history of sequencing, biology, or various discoveries....Practical Bioinformatics will be invaluable to the general researcher or student..." -Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

"The book is well laid out, focusing initially on finding and manipulating single DNA or protein sequences from a number of different databases....Anyone who deals with biochemical data would find this work of great value. Even an absolute novice to bioinformatics would, with a little practice, be able to retrieve and manage data." -The Biologist

"This is exactly the kind of text that I have been looking for to support my bioinformatics teaching… To minimise the entry barrier for using bioinformatics, the author uses only free Web-based tools…There is really good coverage of the many flavours of BLAST, multiple sequence alignments and common tools for DNA and protein sequence analysis, with clear and interesting worked examples and critical analysis of outputs." - Microbiology Today

"This well-written book, replete with helpful illustrations, provides a valuable introduction to the field of bioinformatics....It also will be extremely useful for scientists whose biological training predated the Internet or for scientists in related disciplines who develop an interest in bioinformatics....This book is truly practical in that one can read it independently, performing the exercises on one’s own computer…Well written and easy to follow, this book provides an excellent foundation for anyone interested in the analysis of nucleotide or amino acid sequences. It is well suited for the undergraduate classroom, as well as for those scientists new to the field of bioinformatics." - Doody

From the Publisher