A whole KEGG of genetic pathways!
Oh, oh, while we’re on bioinformatics. My favorite thing to do to explain to people about bioinformatics is to show them kegg, the kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes.
Now genes code for particular proteines that act as enzymes, and these enzymes are arranged in particular pathways, like a factory production line.
The most famous pathway is glycolysis where glucose gets split up, ready to be burned for energy.
Follow the fat line. Each dot is a substance, while each line segment is an enzyme-catalysed reaction.
We can now zoom in. For instance by clicking on the fat line, you can
zoom in on glycolysis and view it in more detail.
View glycolysis in more detail..
A key part of this is when Glycerate-2P gets split in half into two molecules of pyruvate. The last step in this is where the phosphor that was on hand to help with the reaction is removed, and we’re left with pure pyruvate. Can you find it? It’s done by the enzyme pyruvate kinase (2.7.1.40). And yes you can zoom in on that!
View details on pyruvate kinase.
So now we’re looking at a particular enzyme. So scroll down a bit, and you’ll see there’s actually different genes coding for this enzyme in different species. Of course, we’re especially interested in human beings (HSA for Homo SApiens). So for instance, let’s look at the variant for the human liver. You end up here:
View details on gene (HSA 5313) PKLR (Pyruvate Kinase in LiveR).
Now you can scroll down a bit to find the amino acid sequence written out in full under AA SEQ. And here’s the really cool bit: if you scroll down a bit further, you’ll find the actual original nucleotide sequence (NT SEQ) as found on actual human DNA!
So in conclusion, you can really drill all the way down from cell functions back to the DNA that codes for them.
Now do you have a bit of a clue as to why coders are so interested in biology, these days?
