Genome and Metagenome Data Analysis for Education

Abstract

In this paper we address two problems of analyzing genome and metagenome sequencing data — de novo genome assembly problem (assembly of an unknown genome) and problem of comparative metagenome analysis which arises in the analysis of microorganisms in soil, sea, human gut, etc. Despite these problems are of interest to scientists working in the biology area, using them for education is essential for teaching medical students, biologists, bioinformaticians and also in the process of further training of specialists in this areas. In this paper we present a survey of methods for de novo genome assembly and comparative metagenome analysis, examine the possibility of using such approaches in educational processes and propose novel approaches for solving these problems. Proposed solutions have already been used for educating students in the Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University. In this paper we also present the results of experiments of comparing proposed methods against known ones.