Genetic Barcoding To Identify Species
1. Introduction to genetic barcoding to identify species, and focus on the tool, why is barcoding useful and why would we apply this technique to an unknown sequence. The major technique that will be used is the BLAST algorithm on NCBI. Some introduction is shown below:
While there are multiple genes that might change depending on species boundaries there has been an effort to establish a barcode gene for every species, called the Barcode of Life. it is hard to agree on only one gene to use among many species because some groups have genetic differentiation in different genes. Regardless, Barcode of Life Database, called BOLD (http://www.boldsystems.org) had been established, being a useful repository for taxonomic data of every species, and currently it has a little more than 300,000 species that have in dividual sequences to serve as a barcode. This group proposes the mitochondrial region COI for animals, rbcl and matK as plant barcodes, and the ITS region for Fungi. The challenge comes when different creatures require different gene regions to identify them. There is another database for genetic data called NCBI. This repository hosts any genetic data for a wide range of applications. NCBI is a large genetic database that can be used for a variety
of research questions. In this report, we will use the Blast algorithm on NCBI’s website to gather information about an unknown sequence.
2. Discuss what you can found on BLAST if you are provided with some nucleotide squences of some unknonw species and how accurate you think those results are as you found on BLAST
