Computer intelligence spots genes linked to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Kolkata, March 16: Using computatiol intelligence, researchers have identified a set of genes that are “collectively responsible” for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a genetic disease causing progressive decay in muscles. Surama Biswas and Sriyankar Acharyya, both from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Maula Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal, mined a dataset of around 50,000 genes to obtain a sub-set containing 30 genes. “The sub-set containing 30 genes are collectively discrimint in gene expression between DMD affected patients and normal persons. This means that although these genes are present in both affected and normal people, the way the instructions encoded in these genes are used to synthesise gene products (usually proteins), are different in the two categories of people,” Biswas told IANS on Thursday. The genes identified may be clinically investigated to design new drugs and/or modify existing drugs for DMD, Biswas said. To hunt for the genes in a reasoble amount of time, two algorithms were devised based on existing meta-heuristic algorithms. Meta-heuristic aims to find good or near-optimal solutions at a reasoble computatiol cost and time. DMD affects about one in 5,000 males at birth. It is the most common type of muscular dystrophy. Lack of or defect in muscle cell structural proteins is the basic cause of muscular dystrophy. Although a gene called DMD has previously been identified, Biswas said the disease is triggered by a collection of all the genes. (IANS)