Integrating Genomics and Proteomics - A Bioinformatics based pedagogical approach to elucidate Gene-Protein Relationship

The central dogma of life beginning with DNA leading to RNA and subsequently to protein is the unifying principle and corner stone to the understanding of biology. With the advent of sophisticated and high throughput sequencing, enormous data is being generated. This has made the bio-informatics tools indispensable to decipher the data into meaningful conclusions. The objective of the present study was to comprehend the understanding of Genomics and Proteomics with the use of Bioinformatics tools. The course project activity was performed for Genomics & Proteomics course of VII semester undergraduate students of Engineering in Biotechnology. The students were grouped into team of four and assigned with one pathogenic bacterium. The activity involved identifying a pathogenesis-related protein, retrieving the DNA sequences of the protein, finding conserved domains, building phylogenetic relationship amongst the homologous organisms, genome annotation, predicting secondary and tertiary structure of proteins and deducing its stability. In the process, the students were engaged in active learning by the use of various Bioinformatics tools and repositories. The students were thus able to predict the secondary and tertiary structure of protein beginning with DNA sequences. The activity was instrumental in addressing the Graduate attributes. Rubrics-based assessment was performed to measure the attainment level on the scale of 10. The attainment ranged from 7.28 to 9.25 for different performance indicator (PI) of the graduate attributes. A formal anonymous feedback from the students revealed that the activity helped in appreciating the intricate relationship between Genomics and Proteomics by integrating the related concepts.