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Research paper−1−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.3 No.1 pp.1-12 (Jul. 2010) higher speed. If this can be accomplished, it may become a navigator that dramatically raises the efficiency of functional analysis experiments. Among the several industrial application targets, the main biological molecule is the G protein coupled receptor (GPCR)[2]. It exists in the cell membrane, and forms a tubular structure with seven spirals that penetrate the membrane (transmembrane helix). By binding with various ligands, such as neurotransmitters, peptides, odor molecules, and others, from outside the cell, the G protein coupling in the cytoplasm is activated, and the route of information transmission into the cell is determined according to the type (Fig. 1). In many cases, the abnormality of the information transmission system causes severe diseases such as hypertension, cardiac disease, and cancer, and nearly 30 % of the drugs shipped in the world today attempt to control this receptor system. If a drug that can selectively control the activation of G protein is identified, the impact on the market is extremely great. For example, the peptide that controls the expression mechanism of obesity through GPCR is expected to have an enormous market (tens of billions of yen annually) as health food and a useful seed of drugs. However, biochemical experiments for drug discovery involve extremely high risks and are likened to throwing millions of yen into the sea. For example, the isolation of active peptide with bioactivity is not guaranteed even after years and years of research. Or, in case of searching for the ligand of an orphan receptor whose bonding ligand is unknown, it is necessary to set up a cell environment where 1 IntroductionEver since the draft sequence of human genome was published in 2001[1], massive volume of bioinformation began to flood the scene. In about ten years, genome sequence for over 1,000 species of organisms had been decoded. Moreover, with the recent advent of the next-generation sequencer that can decode at a speed that is approximately 1,000 times that of the devices in 2000, there is now a flood of bioinformation. It is certain that an enormous amount of industrially applicable targets (information for genes, RNAs, proteins, etc.) can be obtained in the future, and a highly efficient biochemical experimental technology that can analyze functions will be in demand. However, such analyses require incredible amount of cost and time, and therefore are not feasible at this point. In this situation, the expectation for bioinformatics technology is increasing. Bioinformatics is a discipline formed by the fusion of biology, information science, and other borderline disciplines. It is a study where large amount of data is processed using a computer, the biological information (code) is digitized and organized as database, the new biological findings are obtained while developing and applying the decoding technology, and the biological phenomena are modeled and described in terms of informatics and physics. It has the advantage of being able to predict and control the behavior of genes that carry biological information. There is the potential that the answer for an analysis that cannot be carried out as a biochemical experiment can be given by the computer at lower cost and - Comprehensive functional analysis of the drug design target genes -Makiko Suwa*and Yukiteru OnoComputational Biology Research Center, AIST 2-4-7 Aomi, Koto-ku 135-0064, Japan *E-mail : Original manuscript received June 29, 2009, Revisions received October 13, 2009, Accepted October 20, 2009 In the midst of the information flood of biological data, the role of the bioinformatics technology rises. This technology is expected to provide information to reduce the risk in the experiments and to help the designing of the experimental protocol. For this purpose, we mainly targeted a G protein coupling receptor (GPCR) and developed a computational pipeline which identifies these genes from genome sequences and performs their functional analyses. The applied results have been worked out into an integrated comprehensive functional analysis database (SEVENS). This core technology has become the trigger of collaborative researches, which continues today in a spiral evolutionary form. This flow is the dynamic form that continues advancing by the interaction between the research direction determined by three elements as a driving force and the direction of the life science fields progressing rapidly. The three elements are the core technique matured for a long term, the close cooperation with the experiment researcher, and the environment producing technical incubation.A bioinformatics strategy to produce a cyclically developing project structureKeywords : G-protein coupled receptor, genome, gene finding, G protein coupling selectivity prediction, a spiral development, SEVENS, GRIFFIN[Translation from Synthesiology, Vol.2, No.4, p.299-309 (2009)]

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