Researchers Develop Tool To Study Genes

Two Texas A&M University researchers have developed a computational tool that will help scientists more accurately study complex units of clustered genes, called operons, in bacteria. The tool, which allows scientists to analyze many bacterial genomes at once, is more accurate than previous methods because it starts from experimentally validated data instead of from statistical predictions, they say. The researchers hope their tool will lead to a better understanding of the complex genetic mechanisms involved in a cell’s functioning. “Eventually, we want to try to improve our tool to make it better and more accurate,” Sze said. “Although our tool can analyze a lot of bacteria at the same time, it compares each bacterium to E. coli separately. So the ultimate goal would be to develop a tool that will analyze them all together.”

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