What does ab initio mean?

Question

[pablo escobar]

What's ab initio method in bioinformatics? Can you give me a general overview of this? You can indicate me a source where can find this informations.

[WouterDeCoster]

Perhaps you could provide more context? Ab initio is just Latin for "from the beginning", and therefore what you are looking for is highly dependent on the application.

[pablo escobar]

I'm new in this field...I'm interested in ab initio methods for gene finding problem. I've searched in Google and i don't understand what is the general method and how apply It.

[Joe]

There is no single ‘ab initio’ general method, so you need to decide what you want to apply. Your question is still much too broad.

[Joe]

ab initio is a general term for an algorithm/approach which requires no starting conditions/guiding assumptions.

In layman’s terms it’s “starting from scratch”.

[pablo escobar]

Can indicate me a source where find details on ab initio for gene prediction, please?

[h.mon]

Read the Gene prediction Wikipedia page, in addition to explaining the issue in detail, you will find several references there.

Answer 1

[h.mon]

As WouterDeCoster said, there are several different "ab initio" in bioinformatics, e.g.:

• ab initio protein folding
• ab initio gene prediction
• ab initio genome assembly

And so on. In general, ab initio in bioinformatics means "without direct evidence". For example, ab initio genome assembly is assembling a genome from sequencing reads alone, without any other information like a closely related genome or a genetic map.

[Mehmet]

In addition to h.mon`s comment when there is no reference set (genome assembly, gene annotation information) it refers to "ab initio", meaning you need to produce for the first time.