Objective The strategic directions of multidisciplinary research at the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences include genetics and molecular biology of marine organisms, fields of research where progress increasingly depends on expertise in computational biology. This project will allow making the first step in introducing this much-needed expertise in the Institute and indeed in the region, which we hope will benefit several projects at the Institute (molecular systematics of marine invertebrate s, population genetics of fish and molluscs, marine microbiology). However, considering the short timeline, the utility of tools developed during the project will first be tested on a dataset of Hepatitis C Virus sequences obtained from an epidemic with kn own infection history. These data allow constructing a true phylogenetic tree with extensive temporal information, as the times for both the external nodes and crucial internal nodes are known. HCV displays one the highest rates of evolution detected in an y life form (reaching 10-2 substitutions/site/year. Moreover, extreme heterogeneity of substitution rate is observed in some of the regions of HCV genome. The project will concentrate on resolving the following issues: (1) the level of heterogeneity of the rate of substitution among sites, (2) the use of complex models (for example, models which allow multiple substitution matrices) for possibly better description of the data, (3) the effects of the presence of positive selection on the molecular clock, (4) the nature of amino acid substitutions that occur, especially in the context of the quasispecies hypothesis and the possibility of multiple infections. By analysing sequences coming from a major human pathogen, we hope to provide insight into the molecular biology of HCV and other RNA viruses, relevant not only for molecular evolution, but also for molecular medicine, molecular epidemiology and forensics. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyvirologynatural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsstatistics and probabilitybayesian statisticsmedical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesRNA viruseshepatitis Cnatural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryaminesnatural sciencesbiological sciencesmolecular biologymolecular evolution Keywords bioinformatics computational biology hepatitis C virus molecular clock population genetics Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-4.1 - Marie Curie European Reintegration Grants (ERG) Call for proposal FP6-2002-MOBILITY-11 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERG - Marie Curie actions-European Re-integration Grants Coordinator INSTITUTE OF OCEANOLOGY, POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Address Ul. powstancow warszawy 55 Sopot Poland See on map Links Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 0,00
