Bioinformatic analysis of regulatory elements of multigene families within the Arabidopsis thaliana genome

拟南芥基因组包含大量的序列冗余基因和多基因家族。序列冗余基因组织在串联阵列，片段重复或分散在基因组。复制机制不仅影响编码区，也影响调控区。类似于对编码序列的进化观察，包含调控元件的区域也受到进化变化的影响。因此，包含功能重要元素的区域将比没有功能重要元素的区域更为保守。用于比较同源基因对应区域的系统发育足迹已经成功地应用于保守调控元件的检测。该项目旨在利用拟南芥基因组中大量的冗余，例如在基因家族中，通过对密切相关基因的上游区域进行全面的生物信息学分析，以确定保守基序及其作为调控元件的作用。

The Arabidopsis genome contains a large amount of sequence redundant genes and multigene families. Sequence redundant genes are organised in tandem arrays, segmental duplications or dispersed over the genome. Duplication mechanisms do not only affect coding regions but also regulatory regions. In analogy to evolutionary observations on coding sequences regions containing regulatory elements are subject to evolutionary change. Regions containing functionally important elements will thus be more conserved than regions without functional importance. Phylogenetic footprinting for the comparison of corresponding regions from orthologous genes has already been applied succesfully for the detection of conserved regulatory elements. The project aims to make use of the extensive amount of redundancy, e.g. in gene families, in the Arabidopsis genome by subjecting upstream regions of closely related genes to a comprehensive bioinformatic analysis for conserved motifs and their role as regulatory elements.