Ortholog detection: pathway to comparative genomics

Abstract

Accurate detection of orthologs is a key aspect of comparative genomics. Orthologs can be used to predict the function of newly sequenced genes from the model organisms as they retain the same biological function through the path of evolution. In this paper, we describe different methods available for the detection of orthologs. Different computational methods comprising of phylogenetic as well as pair-wise comparison are discussed and compared. Some other methods based on synteny and protein network comparisons are also included in the paper. The study shows that phylogenetic methods of detecting orthologs are comparatively accurate and reliable than the pair-wise graph based methods but computationally more intensive and slow. These should be used only when sufficient computational power is available for operation. On the other hand, pair-wise approaches are fast and can handle large amounts of data. Synteny based methods also form a good candidate for the detection of orthologs.