Somdatta Sinha (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali, India)
Abstract. Genomes are made of sequences of four nucleotides, A, T, C, and G. Several processes such as mutation, transposition, recombination, translocation, and excision introduce variations in these sequences, which then become the substrates of selection and consequent evolution. Yet different patterns of nucleotide sequences are known to occur in genomes of different species. Such patterns ("genomic signatures" or words) are an emerging area of study in biology. Long range correlations are also known to exist in genomes at different length scales, and genome sequences have been shown to be multi-fractals.
In this talk, I will discuss how these genomic patterns can be used for classification of closely related genomes. This points towards the role of higher order word structures carrying some meaning in the DNA language. Given that repeats, motifs, etc are increasingly being found to play important roles in the elaboration of the encoded information in DNA, and regulation of gene expression, we need to look into this interplay of complex word structures and biological information processing.