Team:UESTC Software/Description.html
Description
Overview
Designed especially for the functioning cellular life form under the most favorable conditions, MCCAP (Minimal Cell Construct and Analyse Panel) is a software targeted for screening the minimal gene set, based on the formal methodology (“top to bottom”) and the new method which means: if the number of organisms which have this sort of essential gene have reached 50 percent or more, it will be reserved. Then you can utilize the minimal gene set, which consists of the essential gene that the software has filtered, to structure the metabolism network for modularization analysis. What is more charming is its functions in different fields, varying from biological research to pharmacy. MCCAP will inspire your interest by seeking our common ancestor, making the chassis of artificial cell, producing antimicrobial drug targets and promoting the synthesis of bacterial strain which is more adapted to the needs as well.
Project Motivation
Essential genes are indispensable for the survival of living entitles, and the functions of proteins encoded by these genes are considered to be the foundation of life, they are the cornerstones of synthetic biology. The study and exploration of essential genes, severing as the foundation of synthetic biology, plays an important role in this field. However, the development has been hampered. There are two obstacles. Firstly, it is hard to measure the common essential genes. Secondly, the interaction information between gene network and essential genes is not enough. MCCAP, Minimal Cell Construct and Analyse Panel, which is developed by us, is dedicated to these two problems. The software that we formulated obtains the ‘accessory’ essential gene from the species which are selected through experiments, then finds out the ‘core’ essential gene from it and gives the gene metabolic network analysis diagram.
Background
The numbers of genes in well-characterized genomes of cellular life forms range from as few as 480 parasitic bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium to~100000-150000 in multicellular eukaryotes, such as humans (Information on the completely sequenced genomes, including several complementary views of gene arrangement, can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Entrez/Genome/org.html)
How Did We Do it ?
MCCAP attains the vital data from CEG, processes the data and screens the essential gene set according to the inputs by users.