Bioinformatics Glossary 1
Allele Frequency- relative proportion of a particular allele among individuals of a population.
Alleles -one of two or more alternate forms of a gene.
Amino Acid - the basic building block of proteins.
Bioinformatics - the study of biology and technology, and how they relate to each other.
Complementary DNA (cDNA) - a molecule of DNA that does not contain introns because of the process of reverse transcription, where mRNA is the template for the making of DNA.
Chromosome - a coiled, rod-shaped form that contains DNA and associated proteins.
Codon - a section of DNA made up of three nucleotides that either codes for a particular amino acid, or serves the purpose of starting or stopping protein synthesis.
Deletion - a mutation that occurs when a nucleotide is left out of a gene sequence, causing a frame shift.
Deoxyribose - a five-carbon sugar located in DNA that forms the backbone of DNA with phosphate groups.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) - a double strand of nucleotides that forms an alpha helix, or staircase resemblance. Basis for our genetic material.
DNA ligase – an enzyme that connects the Okazaki fragments (short, single-stranded DNA fragments) during DNA replication, producing a complementary strand of DNA.
DNA polymerase - an enzyme that creates new DNA strands using DNA templates.
Exon - a section of a gene that codes for proteins. (see intron)
Frameshift - a mutation that results when bases are inserted or deleted in a chain of DNA. This causes all of the bases to shift over to make room for the inserted bases, or shift to fill in where bases were taken out of the chain. This mutation causes drastic changes in the following base sequences.
Gene - a sequence of DNA nucleotides that code for important information carried in proteins, tRNA, and rRNA.
Gene expression - when the information that is coded in a gene is transferred to the mRNA then to the protein.
Genetic Code - the specific triplets in RNA that code for certain amino acids in proteins.
Genetic engineering – the altercation of genes to help improve their ability, or to correct a problem that is contained in this gene, such as a disease.
Genotype - the total set of genes present in the cells of an organism. Also, refers to a set of alleles at a single gene locus.
Insertion - a mutation that occurs when an extra nucleotide is inserted into a gene sequence, causing a frame shift.
Intron - a section of a gene that does not code in the making of mRNA, it is cut out. (see exon)
Mitochondria - known as the cell’s power sources, these distinct organelles have two membranes and usually a rod-shape, but also can have round shap.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) - any single-stranded RNA molecule that encodes the information necessary to synthesize a given protein.
Mutation – any sequence of nucleotides in the copied DNA that does not exactly match with the original sequence of DNA.
Nitrogenous base - an important part of DNA that makes up the genetic sequence. The bases are adenine, guanine, thymine (uracil in RNA), and cytosine.
Nonsense Strand - a complementary RNA strand to the DNA strand that is transcribed and contains no promoter site.
Nucleolus - a structure within the nucleus that contain a bunch of protein and RNA gather together into ribosomes.
Nucleotide - a single molecule composed of a phosphate, a five carbon sugar, and a nitrogenous base that makes up the sequences of DNA.
Nucleus - the brain of a cell, where the DNA is located.
Operon – sequences of DNA, studied in bacteria, that control protein synthesis. The four major components include a regulatory gene, a promoter, an operator, and structural genes.
Phenotype - the realized expression of the genotype; the observable expression of a trait which results from the biological activity of proteins or RNA molecules transcribed from the DNA.
Point mutation - a mutation that occurs when one base pair along a chain of DNA is changed, usually in an exon, or region coding for a protein. There are three types of point mutation: substitution, deletion, and insertion.
Polypeptide - a chain of amino acids that are connected by links called a peptide bond.
Primer - a short nucleic acid sequence that is the initiation point for the addition of nucleotides in DNA replication.
Promoter - a portion of DNA where RNA polymerase attaches to begin transcription.
Promoter Site - the site on DNA where the transcription process begins. Composed of nitrogenous bases.
Protein - made up of a chain of amino acids, and has a specific 3D shape that defines its job.
Proteomics - the study of proteins that are coded by a genome (the genetic material of an organism).
Purines - nucleic bases that have two rings, which are adenine and guanine.
Pyrimidines - nucleic bases that have one ring, which are: cytosine and thymine (uracil replaces thymine in RNA).
Recombination - the formation of new gene combinations not originally found in the cell.
Ribosome - an organelle located within a cell that has two subunits; its function is protein synthesis.
Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) - RNA in globular form, a major component of ribosomes. Its role is protein synthesis.
RNA Polymerase - an enzyme used to create mRNA from either a strand of DNA or RNA.
Sense Strand - the strand of DNA where the promoter site is located, and mRNA receives its messages from the promoter site.
Splicing - the cutting out of introns and joining of exons to form a complete RNA strand with no introns.
Transcription - the process of a DNA strand being used as a template for the formation of RNA.
Translation - the process of mRNA being translated into amino acids, which group together in chains to form proteins. Occurs in ribosome.
Transfer RNA (tRNA) - links with a specific amino acid and recognizes the correct mRNA codon for the amino acid through base pairing the codon with the anticodon (a three nucleotide sequence).
Truncated protein - occurs when an amino acid is replaced with a certain other amino acids in a gene that causes the insertion of a stop codon, which therefore terminates the production of proteins from that point on.