TDI

Tissue and Development Informatics

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Significance

lLife can be described in a multi-dimensional space. This information is compressed and stored in the one-dimensional “sequence”. To decompress the sequence information, you need to have enough dimensions. Tissue and developmental stages are the most important dimensions. Although the components (i.e. genes) in a cell can be predicted by bioinformatics method, we still cannot break the code for spatial and temporal gene expression. Fortunately, this information can be obtained from experimental approach.

To describe a life phenomenon, the gene expression of a gene has to be described in the context of

where is it expressed?
when is it expressed?
which genes or proteins are interacting with this gene?

Broadly speaking, we have considered the location information and even time-dependent location information as part of tissue informatics. In this case, the gene expression information can be used at different scales, from cellular, to tissue, organ, sysem, or even organism level. Thus, we have included the subcellular compartment information and the developmental stage information as part of tissue informatics.

In the post-genomic era, to extract useful information from data and transform information into knowledge is a new research method in biomedical sciences. This new approach is called "information-driven biomedical research". Tissue information can be extracted from value-added database, EST sequences, SAGE tags, microarray data, literature survey. YMU has not only developed tools to take advantage of these data, but also applies tissue information to predict "pathway cross talks". Besides, YMU has developed a "tissue informatics" course to teach the students 1) how to extract tissue information from existing data, and 2) how to use the YMU tools and tools on Internet .

Subcellular compartment

Organ & tissues

Developmental stages

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Last updated on Jan. 6, 2003