Use of Bioinformatics Technologies and Databases to Teach Analysis of Genetic Sequences to Undergraduate Students in Physics, Biotechnology, and Biology: The Specific Case of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein

Abstract

Worldwide, the implementation of computational tools has allowed the advancement of our understanding, specifically, biotechnological information tools have made possible to tackle global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic; therefore, such tools are essential for science students. We propose an activity to teach the use of information and database biotechnologies and their utility for the alignment and comparison of sequences. We use as query sequence the corresponding to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein in its closed state, and we compare it with 200 sequences obtained from the NCBI databases to identify the mutations and their domain. In the results, we show the frequency of the mutations, domain, and country of the isolated SARS-CoV-2 genome. The activity we propose is aimed at first-year undergraduate students in physics, biology, and biotechnology.