INTERACTIVE WEBSITE FOR ANALYZING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA.
A new interactive web site called MitoAnalyzer has been developed by NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC, www.nist.gov) The standards-defining agency of the U.S. government, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. It is one of three agencies that fall under the Technology Administration (www.technology. researchers that allows users to determine the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms, mutations, insertions, or deletions in human mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria. Most other DNA present in eukaryotic organisms is found in the cell nucleus. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to be of separate evolutionary origin, with the mtDNA being derived from the . The user enters the nucleotide number and the new nucleotide (A,G,C,T) that has been found, and the program provides information on the effect of changing that nucleotide including if the change has occurred in one of the 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, or one of the 13 proteins coded by human mitochondrial DNA. If in a protein, the program will provide information on whether an amino acid amino acid (əmē`nō), any one of a class of simple organic compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and in certain cases sulfur. These compounds are the building blocks of proteins. has been changed and what the new amino acid is. The program also will calculate the position of the new amino acid in the protein (e.g., #456 in a protein containing 904 amino acids). It will print out the new amino acid sequence and compare it to the original Cambridge Reference sequence The Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) for human mitochondrial DNA was first published in 1981 as a forerunner of the human genome project. It should be noted that sometimes the abbreviation "CRS" is used to mean "coding region sequence" with regard to mitochondrial DNA. . If the change has been associated with a mitochondrial disease mitochondrial disease Any clinically heterogeneous multisystem disease characterized by defects of brain–mitochondrial encephalopathies and/or muscle–mitochondrial myopathies due to alterations in the protein complexes of the electron transport chain of , information on the disease is also provided. The web site i s at http://www.cstl.nist.gov/biotech/strbase/mitoanalyzer.html. This web site has been accessed over 568 times since it opened on March 16, 2001.
COPYRIGHT 2001 National Institute of Standards and Technology
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
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