miRNA Body Map
We present GENECODIS, a web-based tool that integrates different sources of information to search for annotations that frequently co-occur in a set of genes and rank them by statistical significance. The analysis of concurrent annotations provides significant information for the biologic interpretation of high-throughput experiments and may outperform the results of standard methods for the functional analysis of gene lists.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an important class of post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that are involved in various cellular and phenotypic processes. A number of studies have shown that miRNA expression is induced by signaling pathways. Moreover, miRNAs emerge as regulators of signaling pathways. Here, we present the miTALOS web resource, which provides insight into miRNA-mediated regulation of signaling pathways.
Protein MS analysis is the preferred method for unbiased protein identification. It is normally applied to a large number of both small-scale and high-throughput studies. However, user-friendly computational tools for protein analysis are still needed. In this issue, Mathivanan and colleagues (Proteomics 2015, 15, 2597-2601) report the development of FunRich software, an open-access software that facilitates the analysis of proteomics data, providing tools for functional enrichment and interaction network analysis of genes and proteins.
Large numbers of long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) have been detected through high-throughput sequencing technology. However, currently we still know very little about their functions. Therefore, a lincRNA function annotation database is needed to facilitate the study in this field. In this article, we present Linc2GO, a web resource that aims to provide comprehensive functional annotations for human lincRNA.
A Gene Set Expression Comparison kit is developed as a module of BRB-ArrayTools for discovering biologically meaningful patterns in gene expression data. The kit consists of gene sets of transcription factor (TF) targets, gene sets containing genes whose protein products share the same protein domain and gene sets of microRNA targets. Using this module of BRB-ArrayTools, researchers can efficiently analyze pre-defined sets of gene whose expression is correlated with a categorical quantitative phenotype or patient survival.
Since 2002, information on individual microRNAs (miRNAs), such as reference names and sequences, has been stored in miRBase, the reference database for miRNA annotation. As a result of progressive insights into the miRNome and its complexity, miRBase underwent addition and deletion of miRNA records, changes in annotated miRNA sequences and adoption of more complex naming schemes over time.
The ultimate goal of any genome-scale experiment is to provide a functional interpretation of the data, relating the available information with the hypotheses that originated the experiment. Thus, functional profiling methods have become essential in diverse scenarios such as microarray experiments, proteomics, etc. We present the FatiGO+, a web-based tool for the functional profiling of genome-scale experiments, specially oriented to the interpretation of microarray experiments.
Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) have been revealed to play important roles in developmental control, hormone secretion, cell differentiation and proliferation, and response to environmental stresses. However, our knowledge about the regulatory mechanisms and functions of miRNAs remains very limited. The main difficulties lie in two aspects. On one hand, the number of experimentally validated miRNA targets is very limited and the predicted targets often include many false positives, which constrains us to reveal the functions of miRNAs.
Emerging evidence suggests that specific spatio-temporal microRNA (miRNA) expression is required for heart development. In recent years, hundreds of miRNAs have been discovered. In contrast, functional annotations are available only for a very small fraction of these regulatory molecules.