Computational Biology as an aid in Deciphering vital insights on Plant Pathogens and their Interaction with hosts
Computational biology or bioinformatics has its roots in the dawn of genomic revolution when research activities were started to sequence the genome of various organisms. Refinement in sequencing technologies and potential of genomic research resulted in meteoric growth of biological information such as sequences of DNA, RNA and protein requiring databases for efficient storage, management and retrieval of the biological information. Also, computational algorithms for analysis of these colossal data became a vital aspect of biological sciences. As in other biological sciences, computational biology and genome sequencing gave a new lease of life to plant pathology research, enabling an improved knowledge of the molecular basis of hostpathogen interactions. At present, these genome information of various plant pathogenic fungi, bacteria, virus, phytoplasma etc are stored and managed in various databases. Besides databases for information on nucleotide and proteins sequences of plant pathogens, databases are available for resistance genes for facilitating resistance breeding as well as bioprospecting and allele mining. Analysis of stored information, through bioinformatics tools, can reveal vital information of plant pathogens. Computational algorithms are now an intrinsic part of plant pathology providing valuable solutions in various aspects of plant disease research such as designing diagnostic molecular tools, ascertaining genetic variability among pathogens, taxonomic and phylogenetic studies of plant pathogens, prediction of pathogenicity genes to name a few. Bioinformatics tools give valuable insights into the mechanism of pathogenesis and also help in identifying the underlying strategy involved in the initiation of plant immune response.
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