Prospecting of enzymes of biotechnological interest in insect metagenomes using probabilistic profiles of peptide sequences

• Grant number: 17/24466-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 01, 2018
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Molecular Genetics and Genetics of Microorganisms
• Principal Investigator: Caio César de Melo Freire
• Grantee: Brendo Rony Nunes Hyppolito
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

After the revolution caused in the industry by the use of enzymes, the search for new and more advantageous enzymes has gained importance. A very promising source for prospecting new enzymes are insects, which exploit different adaptive surfaces and have a huge and diverse enzymatic pool. As a strategy to exploit this source and to prospect for new enzymes, we can use the metagenomic tools that generate large amounts of sequences, which need to be assembled and annotated. The annotation is commonly based on the search for similarity among sequences, which can lead to a considerable loss of information during the annotation. Therefore, we intend in this study perform a more sensitive and directed approach, using probabilistic profiles (HMM-profiles) from sequences of enzymes with biotechnological interests, to prospect sequences of new enzymes in insect metagenomes. When analyzing public database metagenomes, we intend to find new enzymes that may not have been revealed by similarity-based techniques. In addition, additional annotation will be performed in sequences similar to enzymes of biotechnological interest with computational tools. (AU)