I just finished reading the transcript of the great
BIOINFORMATICS: THE USE OF SEQUENCE DATABASES meeting led on Wednesday by
Clare Sansom. At the end of the meeting the recurrent problem of the use of
homology / similarity terms has been mentionned :
>ClareS says, "one thing I would like to make clear now, is the definition
>of >the word "homology""
>... "you will have noticed my referring to percentage sequence identity,
>or >sequence similarity, but not homology"
>... "the word "homology" has a strict meaning - two proteins are
>homologous if >they are evolutionarily related" ...
I just would like to pass on the reference of a Letter to the
editor of Cell back in 1987 (!), written by most prominent scientists :
"Homology" in proteins and nucleic acids : a terminology muddle and
a way out of it.
Reeck, G.R., de Haen, C, Teller, D.C., Doolittle, R.F., Fitch,
W.M., Dickerson, R.E., Chambon, P, McLachlan, A.D., Margoliash, E., Jukes,
T.H. & Zuckerland, E
Cell (1987, August 28) 50, p. 667.
Thanks to Clare for a great first meeting on databases. I'm looking
forward to the next one. Could we discuss the comparative merits of the SRS
system vs. OWL ?
Best regards
Pierre
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Pierre Hubert
INSERM U. 338 - 5 rue Blaise Pascal
67084 Strasbourg Cedex France
tel (33) 88 45 67 20 - fax (33) 88 60 08 06
hubert@neurochem.u-strasbg.fr
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