De Novo Identification of Regulatory Regions in Intergenic Spaces of Prokaryotic Genomes

摘要

This project was begun to implement, test, and experimentally validate the results of a novel algorithm for genome-wide identification of candidate transcription-factor binding sites in prokaryotes. Most techniques used to identify regulatory regions rely on conservation between different genomes or have a predetermined sequence motif(s) to perform a genome-wide search. Therefore, such techniques cannot be used with new genome sequences, where information regarding such motifs has not yet been discovered. This project aimed to apply a de novo search algorithm to identify candidate binding-site motifs in intergenic regions of prokaryotic organisms, initially testing the available genomes of the Yersinia genus. We retrofitted existing nucleotide pattern-matching algorithms, analyzed the candidate sites identified by these algorithms as well as their target genes to screen for meaningful patterns.