CBCB Seminar Series

Summer 2008

2 p.m. Thursday June 12, 2008

Title: Measurement and evolutionary analysis of protein domain promiscuity using computational linguistics
Speaker: Malay K Basu, Ph.D. (NIH/NLM/NCBI)
Venue: Biomolecular Science Building Room 3118
Abstract:

I will discuss a new approach of analysis of multi-domain proteins using ideas borrowed from computational linguistics. Using a very simple technique called "bigram analysis" I have quantitatively measured the tendency of certain domains to be present is diverse domain combinations. Called "promiscuous", such domains are very important in signaling network in the cell. I will also discuss how I used these measurements to create genome trees. Such trees do not require orthology determination or sequence alignments, and are, arguably, superior than traditional whole genome phylogeny. Additionally, I will discuss the functional and evolutionary implications of promiscuity as a phylogenetic character.