Bioinformatics tool kit for interpreting genome sequencing in bacteriophages

Abstract

Recent advances in genome sequencing have produced vast amounts of nucleotide sequences, but these sequences don’t contain easily understood information regarding the organism. For example, bacteriophages infect bacterial cells and many phage genomes have been sequenced, but still little is known regarding their genes structure and function. Bioinformatic techniques have been used to decipher the sequence into an understandable annotation. In this study, a bacteriophage discovered at Coastal Carolina University, was annotated using seven guiding principles of bioinformatic techniques for interpreting data from sequenced genomes. These guiding principles are: 1) longest reading frame, 2) looking for overlaps or gaps, 3) comparing annotated start codons, 4) coding potential, 5) nucleotide BLAST of start sequence, 6) ribosomal binding scores, 7) HHPRED function of sequence. This annotation will have various contributions to the scientific community through future applications in job fields with a focus on microbial life based on the understanding of newly annotated gene sequences. For example, the use of bacteriophages in developing new medicinal treatments such as phage therapy