UPSC Articles
Computation Analysis of Indian Genes published
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Science and Technology
In news
- Recently, the results from the computation analysis of the 1029 sequenced genomes from India were published in the scientific journal, Nucleic Acid Research.
- The analysis was carried out by CSIR constituent labs, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad.
- The analysis has found that out of approximately 55.8 million single nucleotide variants in India, around 18.01 million (32.23%) variants are unique and found only in the samples sequenced from India.
- Thus, India-centric population genomic initiative becomes important.
Important value additions
Genome
- A genome is all the genetic matter in an organism.
- It is defined as an organism’s complete set of DNA including all of its genes.
- Every organism’s genetic code is contained in its DNA, the building blocks of life.
- Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism.
- In humans, a copy of the entire genome contains more than 3 billion DNA base pairs.
Genome sequencing
- It means figuring out the order of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanines, and Thymine (DNA nucleotides) in a genome
- Application: (1) Crucial role for new advancements in medical science; (2) In disease management; (3) Researchers and clinicians can easily detect the disease related to genetic disorder.
- The study of entire genome sequences will help understand how genes work together to direct the growth, development and maintenance of an entire organism.
- The genes account for less than 25% of the DNA in the Genome. Thus, knowing the entire genome sequence will help scientists study the parts of the genome outside the genes.
