Search

April 2, 2022 marks the anniversary of Lyudmila Andreevna Bespalova, an Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the prominent wheat and triticale breeders, the author of many varieties introduced into agricultural practice both in our country and abroad, which are cultivated in areas encompassing millions of hectares, thus making a significant contribution to solving the global food security problem. Lyudmila A. Bespalova is a recognized classic in the field of wheat breeding and seed production, she has published over 300 scientific papers, and received about 120 copyright certificates and patents. Acad. Bespalova is a bright representative of domestic breeders, who maintains the traditions of one of the largest scientific schools and takes an active part in the life of the community of geneticists and breeders in this country by training young specialists and increasing the prestige of and demand for the profession of a breeder.

January 9, 2022 marks the 75th anniversary of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kolchanov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Leader of the Federal Research Center the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, First Vice-President of the Vavilov Society of Geneticists and Breeders. Acad. N.A. Kolchanov is a prominent specialist in the field of bioinformatics and systems computational biology, under whose guidance the largest domestic scientific school in this area has formed and received global development. He is the author and co-author of about 700 publications in domestic and foreign press, holder of 18 copyright certificates and 8 patents. For almost 20 years, Acad. Kolchanov is the Head and Professor of the Department of Information Biology with the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University. He supervised the work of 12 doctoral and 2 senior doctorate students. His students, who work in leading domestic and foreign scientific centers, are the pride of Russian science and make a significant contribution to the world level of development of modern bioinformatics at the global level.

The role of genetic exchanges, i.e., homologous recombination (HR) and horizontal gene transfer (HGT), in bacteria cannot be overestimated for it is a pivotal mechanism leading to their evolution and adaptation, thus, tracking the signs of recombination and HGT events is importance both for fundamental and applied science. To date, dozens of bioinformatics tools for revealing recombination signals are available, however, their pros and cons as well as the spectra of solvable tasks have not yet been systematically reviewed. Moreover, there are two major groups of software. One aims to infer evidence of HR, while the other only deals with horizontal gene transfer (HGT). However, despite seemingly different goals, all the methods use similar algorithmic approaches, and the processes are interconnected in terms of genomic evolution influencing each other. In this review, we propose a classification of novel instruments for both HR and HGT detection based on the genomic consequences of recombination. In this context, we summarize available methodologies paying particular attention to the type of traceable events for which a certain program has been designed.