Abstract
Genes critical for the survival or reproduction of an organism in certain circumstances are classified as essential genes. Essential genes play a significant role in deciphering the survival mechanism of life. They may be greatly applied to pharmaceutics and synthetic biology. The continuous progress of experimental method for essential gene identification has accelerated the accumulation of gene essentiality data which facilitates the study of essential genes in silico. In this article, we present some available online resources related to gene essentiality, including bioinformatic software tools for transposon sequencing (Tn-seq) analysis, essential gene databases and online services to predict bacterial essential genes. We review several computational approaches that have been used to predict essential genes, and summarize the features used for gene essentiality prediction. In addition, we evaluate the available online bacterial essential gene prediction servers based on the experimentally validated essential gene sets of 30 bacteria from DEG. This article is intended to be a quick reference guide for the microbiologists interested in the essential genes.
Highlights
Essential genes are those that play a decisive role in the survival and development of an organism under general conditions
We summarize several features used in essential gene prediction
Researchers tried to predict the minimal gene set by comparing the first sequenced genomes of Haemophilus influenzae and Mycoplasma genitalium, and identified 256 candidate essential genes (Mushegian and Koonin, 1996)
Summary
Essential genes are those that play a decisive role in the survival and development of an organism under general conditions. When the environment in which organisms live is clearly defined can a gene be classified as essential gene or not. Another closely linked concept is the minimal gene set. A minimal gene set is defined as the minimal set of genes needed for a cell to carry out basic metabolism and reproduction under the most favorable conditions, in which all essential nutrients are available and there is no environmental stress (Koonin, 2000, 2003; Gil et al, 2004). In the emerging scientific field of synthetic biology, devising a minimal genome is a desirable research direction
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
