MSc Thomas Faux defends his doctoral dissertation in Bioinformatics entitled “Computational methods for studying epigenomic regulations” at the University of Turku on 31 March 2023 at 12.00 pm (University of Turku, Biocity, Presidentti auditorium, Tykistökatu 6, Turku).

Opponent: Docent Sami Heikkinen (University of Eastern Finland)

Custos: Professor Laura Elo (University of Turku)

Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation:

In the nucleus of cells, the DNA is protected against degradation by being tightly wrapped around proteins called histones forming a complex called chromatin. The chromatin needs to be unwrapped in order to have access to the genetic information contained in the DNA. Modifications of the histones by enzymes allow the opening and closing of the chromatin.

Methods exist to study such modifications as well as the state in which is the chromatin (opened or closed). These methods coupled with sequencing produce data which informs us on the type and amount of modifications present on histones, as well as the state of openness of chromatin.

The data produced is then used by scientists to make inferences and draw conclusions on their particular area of interest. In order to produce understandable results, the data needs to be processed, visualised and analysed. The choice of the tools used to perform the processing and analysis steps is far from trivial and in many cases the choice of a tool over another one influence the results of the overall study.

During the dissertation research Bioinformatics tool were developed in order to help with the process of visualisation and analyse of the data. These tools have been compared to state-of-the-art existing tools and performed equally or better when compared in different conditions. Then some example of applications of tools to analyse data are presented.

 Digital copy of the dissertation at UTUPub: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9189-1 (copy the link to the browser).