Question

Which of the given statement is untrue about functional genomics?

(a) Known functions are derived from experimental evidence in molecular biology and genetic studies with model organisms

(b) Non-Orthologous genes between biologically distinct species can be identified, and it is strong evidence for a related function

(c) Sequence-based methods of gene prediction can be augmented by the types of genome comparisons that are designed to identify related genes based on common patterns of expression, evolutionary profiles, chromosomal locations, and other features

(d) Genome analysis depends to a large extent on sequence analysis methods that identify gene function based on similarity between proteins of unknown function and proteins of known function

I had been asked this question at a job interview.

The above asked question is from Prediction of Gene Function Based on a Composite Analysis topic in chapter Genome Analysis of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct choice is (b) Non-Orthologous genes between biologically distinct species can be identified, and it is strong evidence for a related function

The explanation is: Orthologous genes between biologically distinct species (for example, yeast and fruit flies) can be identified, and the high sequence similarity between them is strong evidence for a related function. Given the more complex multicellular biology of flies, the fly gene could have an additional function that is not predictable by the yeast model. In other cases, the occurrence of families of paralogous genes that share common domains can make a precise guess of function of one of these proteins more difficult because all match a model protein to some degree.