sequence DNA or RNA, respectively, answering the research or clinical question you
have. Different sequencing approaches thus lead to different readouts.
1.1
Introduction
Why do some people become seriously ill, others remain healthy throughout their lives?
Why does a disease progress so differently in different people? Why does a drug work
optimally in one patient and not in others? The answer to these questions lies in the
complex individuality of each person and a medicine that does justice to it—personalized
medicine. To examine the healthy as well as the sick person in the finest detail and to
calculate the results with a lot of computer capacity to a meaningful image helps to
understand and to treat more precisely also particularly complex illnesses, such as psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, or also cancer. Our genetic
pattern, but also differences in our diet, environment, or lifestyle have an effect on our state
of health. How do the individual factors contribute to a disease and how can they be
influenced? It is obvious that in the case of complex diseases one cannot just consider
individual factors. Only investigations of the exact interplay and the chronological
sequence enable a deeper understanding of the health and illness of the human body.
Today, the power of computers with enormous computing capacity is used to determine
complex relationships of different influences from detailed measurements on humans, to
create mechanistic models being then tested in the laboratory for their accuracy. In this
process, different levels of data are examined, ranging from single clinical observations to
complicated molecular data sets. The approach known as “systems medicine” uses the
quantities of data by relating them intelligently, designing predictive models and thus
helping to develop innovative therapeutic and preventive procedures [1–5].
1.2
Biological Sequences
In general, you can say that living organisms consist of cells, which share common features
but also differ in function and morphology. Anyway, almost every eukaryotic cell type
carries a nucleus harboring our genetic make-up—the DNA. The DNA stores all the
information, which is essential for producing, e.g., a human being, similar to an instruction
manual. To make the information written in the DNA usable, parts of the DNA are
transcribed into another kind of biological information—the RNA. The parts of the
DNA, which are transcribed into RNA, are called coding regions or genes. Thus, the
RNA transports the information of the DNA out of the nucleus (this RNA is, therefore,
called “messenger RNA” (mRNA)). A significant portion of the RNA is then used as
information being translated into another biological molecule—a protein. Proteins are
composed of amino acids and fulfill almost all structural, regulatory, and signal transducing
2
A. Bosserhoff and M. Kappelmann-Fenzl
have. Different sequencing approaches thus lead to different readouts.
1.1
Introduction
Why do some people become seriously ill, others remain healthy throughout their lives?
Why does a disease progress so differently in different people? Why does a drug work
optimally in one patient and not in others? The answer to these questions lies in the
complex individuality of each person and a medicine that does justice to it—personalized
medicine. To examine the healthy as well as the sick person in the finest detail and to
calculate the results with a lot of computer capacity to a meaningful image helps to
understand and to treat more precisely also particularly complex illnesses, such as psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular diseases, inflammatory diseases, or also cancer. Our genetic
pattern, but also differences in our diet, environment, or lifestyle have an effect on our state
of health. How do the individual factors contribute to a disease and how can they be
influenced? It is obvious that in the case of complex diseases one cannot just consider
individual factors. Only investigations of the exact interplay and the chronological
sequence enable a deeper understanding of the health and illness of the human body.
Today, the power of computers with enormous computing capacity is used to determine
complex relationships of different influences from detailed measurements on humans, to
create mechanistic models being then tested in the laboratory for their accuracy. In this
process, different levels of data are examined, ranging from single clinical observations to
complicated molecular data sets. The approach known as “systems medicine” uses the
quantities of data by relating them intelligently, designing predictive models and thus
helping to develop innovative therapeutic and preventive procedures [1–5].
1.2
Biological Sequences
In general, you can say that living organisms consist of cells, which share common features
but also differ in function and morphology. Anyway, almost every eukaryotic cell type
carries a nucleus harboring our genetic make-up—the DNA. The DNA stores all the
information, which is essential for producing, e.g., a human being, similar to an instruction
manual. To make the information written in the DNA usable, parts of the DNA are
transcribed into another kind of biological information—the RNA. The parts of the
DNA, which are transcribed into RNA, are called coding regions or genes. Thus, the
RNA transports the information of the DNA out of the nucleus (this RNA is, therefore,
called “messenger RNA” (mRNA)). A significant portion of the RNA is then used as
information being translated into another biological molecule—a protein. Proteins are
composed of amino acids and fulfill almost all structural, regulatory, and signal transducing
2
A. Bosserhoff and M. Kappelmann-Fenzl