Bioinformatics applications in food biotechnology

Bioinformatics; is a multi disciplinary research area emerged as a result of multiple areas such as biology, molecular biology and genetics, biochemistry, statistics, computer sciences an electrical and electronics engineering through focusing on DNA and protein databases. Bioinformatics has up to date provided many in silico softwares to evaluate date originated through genome project. Although until today a large part of in silico tools focuse on DNA and protein sequences, the development of bioinformatics softwares on food biotechnology area has also started. In this master thesis, it was aimed to identify bioactive peptides present in Caulerpa species which have famous due to their spread type in the Mediterranean Sea. In this study, 4 different rubisc/o enzyme of Caulerpa species were evaluated for bioactive peptides. According to results, rubisc/o of C. racemosa var. lamourouxii and C. racemosa f. occidentalis showed the best potential in terms of bioactive peptides. When the obtained data were compared to similar reseaches in the literature, the presence of considerable amount of bioactive peptides was determined in Caulerpa species. Instead of researching eradication method of Caulerpa species which are considered as biological pollution on the shores of our country, the isolation of bioactive peptides from these species that have medical significance can be a novel area that will contribute to our country's economy.