Chapter 18 - Advancement in bioinformatics and microarray-based technologies for genome sequence analysis and its application in bioremediation of soil and water pollutants

Abstract

The microarray is an excellent platform for the understanding of complex regulatory as well as functional mechanisms operating in various cellular processes and, hence, microarray significantly contributing to human welfare. However, voluminous data generated following to microarray, requiring a series of consecutive-analyses to extract useful information to draw any conclusion. Moreover, bioinformatics is an emerging tool advocated for the generation of valuable information’s from large datasets, such as microarray, RNA sequencing, next-generation sequencing, proteomics, transcriptomics. Therefore, to make these experiments interpretable, a series of algorithms must be applied. Thus, in recent decades, microarray in combination with bioinformatics has transformed the field of biology by enhancing our fundamental understanding of how genome shapes the organism. In this chapter, we discuss key concepts, tools, software, and databases used in bioinformatics for the interpretation of large datasets. Furthermore, some fundamental issues associated with sequence analyses, transcriptomic studies, computational proteomics and metabolomics, bioontologies, and biological databases covered to gain our fundamental understanding of the general approaches and algorithms currently employed in the microarray. Today’s world is suffering from various environmental pollutants that impose a negative impact on our lifestyles. Therefore an economical and eco-friendly way is urgently calling the attention of scientists. Recently, bioremediation emerges as a hopeful tool, which utilizes microbes to clean our environment. The microarray and bioinformatics approach could be applied for the identification and characterization of novel microbes, which will serve as an inoculum in wastes bioremediation. However, this field is remaining elusive because of the complex biological activities of these microbes, and a better knowledge of their interactions could only be possible through microarray and bioinformatics. Several molecular and bioinformatic tools such as genomics, transcriptomics, translatomics, proteomics, evogenimics, metagenomics, metabolomics are used to gather information on such interaction. In this chapter, we discuss the role of microarray-based technologies and bioinformatics in the bioremediation of wastes.