Sayan Chatterjee
University School of Biotechnology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India.

ABSTRACT

DNA repair genes encode proteins that protect organisms against genetic damage generated by environmental agents and by-products of cell metabolism. The importance of these genes in life maintenance is supported by their high conservation, not only intra specie but inter species as well. Complete genome sequences can provide potential sources of new information about repair in different species. The possibility of obtaining gene sequences from organisms that have long diverged makes it feasible to use these data to trace their evolutionary origin. Computer analysis of genome data, and its capacity to rapidly generate relevant information, contributes to a better understanding of the different evolutionary histories. The comparative genomic approaches may be a fast-track method to find out any possible surrogates of each of the DNA repair genes and the proteins encoded by them in lower animals like nematodes. A global comparative analysis of DNA repair proteins and genes encoding them based upon the analysis of available complete genome sequences shows significant model systems which may be proposed on a case to case basis eve upto a single gene level. The analysis ideally may combine genome sequence information and molecular phylogenetic studies into a composite analysis which can be referred to as comparative genomics. This approach may be used to study for surrogates of human desease genes and repair proteins in lower animals for which we now know the complete genome sequence.    Read More …