Bioinformatics methods for identifying candidate disease genes.
With the explosion in genomic and functional genomics information, methods for disease gene identification are rapidly evolving. Databases are now essential to the process of selecting candidate disease genes. Combining positional information with disease characteristics and functional information is the usual strategy by which candidate disease genes are selected. Enrichment for candidate disease genes, however, depends on the skills of the operating researcher. Over the past few years, a number of bioinformatics methods that enrich for the most likely candidate disease genes have been developed. Such in silico prioritisation methods may further improve by completion of datasets, by development of standardised ontologies across databases and species and, ultimately, by the integration of different strategies.
van Driel
Marc A
MA
Molecular Biology Department, Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Brunner
Han G
HG
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D004194:Disease; D005796:Genes / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D012984:Software