Bioinformatics

The generation of massive amounts of molecular information on plant genomes and their products from large-scale sequencing programmes, DNA fingerprinting and fragment analyses, mapping, molecular diagnostics, marker-assisted selection and DNA microarrays requires a concomitant increase in the ability to handle and analyse such data.
The handling and interpretation of molecular data are generally referred to as bioinformatics and marries requirements of computing power, data handling and appropriate software. Depending on the level of analysis, the area can be divided into ‘genomics’ (DNA level), ‘proteomics’ (protein expression level) and ‘metabolomics’ (metabolic level). In many cases, it is useful to ‘mine’ DNA or other databases to look for new or useful genes or sequences, using specific software, programs and algorithms.