Special Topics in CS: Bioinformatics
Homework 2  


Superoxide Dismutase(image by Michael Potter)


Superoxide Dismutase


Database Searches Use on-line resources to answer the following questions:

  1. Superoxide dismutase is an enzyme found in most living organisms. What does superoxide dismutase do? (Hint: use Swissprot, Genecards, KEGG).
  2. Obtain the sequences of all yeast superoxide dismutase proteins. (Hint: use Swissprot at Expasy). Limit your search to baker's yeast -- Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
  3. Obtain the yeast copper-zinc superoxide dismutase gene (hint: EMBL entry SODC_YEAST , Accession number J03279 from EMBL).
  4. Translate the gene and compare the protein sequence to the Swiss-Prot seqeunces. (Hint: use ORFFinder at NCBI)
  5. Obtain the genomic DNA of a human superoxide (manganese) and translate it into protein. What's the result and why? (hint: try ORF Finder and GENSCAN (Swissprot -> Proteomics tools)

Due: Submit a hard copy of a report containing answers to the questions above by the beginning of class on Wednesday September 10, 2003