Basic Applied Bioinformatics

Glossary

Term	Meaning
ab initio	A Latin term that means starting “from the beginning” or initiation.
Accession number	The unique number assigned to an accepted submission (e.g., molecular sequence, genome project data, WGS, STs, etc.) by the database (NCBI, DDBJ, EMBL) to differentiate the submission from another similar type. The accession number is alphanumeric, and the format differs among molecular sequences (nucleotide and protein) as well as the type of database (NCBI, Swiss‐Prot‐UniProt, etc.)
Adapter	Priming site created by ligation of short oligonucleotide to the DNA which is to be sequenced or amplified
Algorithm	A set of rules set to complete an assignment or operation by a computer (in general). The term is derived from the name of Iraqi mathematician Mohammed ibn Musa al‐Khwarizmi (9th century AD).
Allosteric Protein	A protein having multiple ligand binding sites, whose conformation changes upon ligand binding. The enzyme can be an allosteric protein.
Amplicon	Gene‐specific nucleotides sequences amplified by PCR.
Annealing Temperature (Tm)	The temperature at which 50% of the DNA helices are dissociated during PCR amplification.
Annotation	Comments on or explanation of a text or data.
Barcode	Short sequences of typically six or more nucleotides that are used to identify/label individual samples when they are pooled in one sample.
Binary Tree	Tree‐like data structures with two (binary) branches. The point from where each branch separates ...