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A comparative genomic analysis of ESTs from Ustilago maydis.

A large-scale comparative genomic analysis of unisequence sets obtained from an Ustilago maydis EST collection was performed against publicly available EST and genomic sequence datasets from 21 species. We annotated 70% of the collection based on similarity to known sequences and recognized protein signatures. Distinct grouping of the ESTs, defined by the presence or absence of similar sequences in the species examined, allowed the identification of U. maydis sequences present only (1) in fungal species, (2) in plants but not animals, (3) in animals but not plants, or (4) in all three eukaryotic lineages assessed. We also identified 215 U. maydis genes that are found in the ascomycete but not in the basidiomycete genome sequences searched. Candidate genes were identified for further functional characterization. These include 167 basidiomycete-specific sequences, 58 fungal pathogen-specific sequences (including 37 basidiomycete pathogen-specific sequences), and 18 plant pathogen-specific sequences, as well as two sequences present only in other plant pathogen and plant species.

Databases, Nucleic Acid↗

The Swiss-Prot protein knowledgebase and ExPASy: providing the plant community with high quality proteomic data and tools.

The Swiss-Prot protein knowledgebase provides manually annotated entries for all species, but concentrates on the annotation of entries from model organisms to ensure the presence of high quality annotation of representative members of all protein families. A specific Plant Protein Annotation Program (PPAP) was started to cope with the increasing amount of data produced by the complete sequencing of plant genomes. Its main goal is the annotation of proteins from the model plant organism Arabidopsis thaliana. In addition to bibliographic references, experimental results, computed features and sometimes even contradictory conclusions, direct links to specialized databases connect amino acid sequences with the current knowledge in plant sciences. As protein families and groups of plant-specific proteins are regularly reviewed to keep up with current scientific findings, we hope that the wealth of information of Arabidopsis origin accumulated in our knowledgebase, and the numerous software tools provided on the Expert Protein Analysis System (ExPASy) web site might help to identify and reveal the function of proteins originating from other plants. Recently, a single, centralized, authoritative resource for protein sequences and functional information, UniProt, was created by joining the information contained in Swiss-Prot, Translation of the EMBL nucleotide sequence (TrEMBL), and the Protein Information Resource-Protein Sequence Database (PIR-PSD). A rising problem is that an increasing number of nucleotide sequences are not being submitted to the public databases, and thus the proteins inferred from such sequences will have difficulties finding their way to the Swiss-Prot or TrEMBL databases.

Arabidopsis↗

Characterization of the type I interferon locus and identification of novel genes.

The human type I interferon (IFN) genes are clustered on human chromosome 9p21 and the mouse genes are located in the region of conserved synteny on mouse chromosome 4. We have identified two novel mouse Ifna genes (Ifna12, Ifna13) and Ifnl2 (IFN-like 2, a homologue of Limitin/IFN-like 1). Another type I IFN gene was designated Ifne1. Mouse Ifne1 was expressed in ovaries and uterus but not in tissues of hematopoietic origin. IFN-epsilon1 has general structural characteristics of a type I IFN. These studies represent the first detailed annotation of the mouse type I IFN locus, and the products of these novel genes may have important functions in reproduction and host defense.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

A gene expression map of human chromosome 21 orthologues in the mouse.

The DNA sequence of human chromosome 21 (HSA21) has opened the route for a systematic molecular characterization of all of its genes. Trisomy 21 is associated with Down's syndrome, the most common genetic cause of mental retardation in humans. The phenotype includes various organ dysmorphies, stereotypic craniofacial anomalies and brain malformations. Molecular analysis of congenital aneuploidies poses a particular challenge because the aneuploid region contains many protein-coding genes whose function is unknown. One essential step towards understanding their function is to analyse mRNA expression patterns at key stages of organism development. Seminal works in flies, frogs and mice showed that genes whose expression is restricted spatially and/or temporally are often linked with specific ontogenic processes. Here we describe expression profiles of mouse orthologues to HSA21 genes by a combination of large-scale mRNA in situ hybridization at critical stages of embryonic and brain development and in silico (computed) mining of expressed sequence tags. This chromosome-scale expression annotation associates many of the genes tested with a potential biological role and suggests candidates for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome.

Animals↗

Bacterial orthologues indicate the malarial plastid gene ycf24 is essential.

ycf24 is a well conserved gene found in all major groups of bacteria, as well as on red algal plastid genomes and the vestigal plastid genome of apicomplexan pathogens like the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (ORF470). Some database annotations describe Ycf24 as an ABC transporter subunit, but we find the level of significance is low. To investigate ycf24's function we disrupted it in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp., strain PCC6803 which has a multi-copy genome. This showed ycf24 is essential, partial loss producing a terminal phenotype of chlorosis, reduced cell size, loss of DNA, and a striking arrest in cytokinesis. Attempts to disrupt the single copy of ycf24 in E. coli failed to give stable transformants. When Ycf24 was over-expressed in E. coli as a soluble fusion protein, it localized mostly as a band on either side of the nucleoid and nucleoid partitioning was aberrant. We propose the relict plastid organelle of apicomplexans retains its capacity for protein synthesis because Ycf24 is essential.

ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters↗

Gene structure conservation aids similarity based gene prediction.

One of the primary tasks in deciphering the functional contents of a newly sequenced genome is the identification of its protein coding genes. Existing computational methods for gene prediction include ab initio methods which use the DNA sequence itself as the only source of information, comparative methods using multiple genomic sequences, and similarity based methods which employ the cDNA or protein sequences of related genes to aid the gene prediction. We present here an algorithm implemented in a computer program called Projector which combines comparative and similarity approaches. Projector employs similarity information at the genomic DNA level by directly using known genes annotated on one DNA sequence to predict the corresponding related genes on another DNA sequence. It therefore makes explicit use of the conservation of the exon-intron structure between two related genes in addition to the similarity of their encoded amino acid sequences. We evaluate the performance of Projector by comparing it with the program Genewise on a test set of 491 pairs of independently confirmed mouse and human genes. It is more accurate than Genewise for genes whose proteins are <80% identical, and is suitable for use in a combined gene prediction system where other methods identify well conserved and non-conserved genes, and pseudogenes.

Algorithms↗

TcruziDB: an integrated, post-genomics community resource for Trypanosoma cruzi.

TcruziDB (http://TcruziDB.org) is an integrated post-genomics database for the parasitic organism, Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease. TcruziDB was established in 2003 as a flat-file database with tools for mining the unannotated sequence reads and preliminary contig assemblies emerging from the Tri-Tryp genome consortium (TIGR/SBRI/Karolinska). Today, TcruziDB houses the recently published assembled genomic contigs and annotation provided by the genome consortium in a relational database supported by the Genomics Unified Schema (GUS) architecture. The combination of an annotated genome and a relational architecture has facilitated the integration of genomic data with expression data (proteomic and EST) and permitted the construction of automated analysis pipelines. TcruziDB has accepted, and will continue to accept the deposition of genomic and functional genomic datasets contributed by the research community.

Animals↗

Genes that enhance the ecological fitness of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 in sediments reveal the value of antibiotic resistance.

Environmental bacteria persist in various habitats, yet little is known about the genes that contribute to growth and survival in their respective ecological niches. Signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM) of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 coupled with a screen involving incubations of mutant strains in anoxic aquifer sediments allowed us to identify 47 genes that enhance fitness in sediments. Gene functions inferred from annotations provide us with insight into physiological and ecological processes that environmental bacteria use while growing in sediment ecosystems. Identification of the mexF gene and other potential membrane efflux components by STM demonstrated that homologues of multidrug resistance genes present in pathogens are required for sediment fitness of nonpathogenic bacteria. Further studies with a mexF deletion mutant demonstrated that the multidrug resistance pump encoded by mexF is required for resistance to antibiotics, including chloramphenicol and tetracycline. Chloramphenicol-adapted cultures exhibited mutations in the gene encoding a TetR family regulatory protein, indicating a role for this protein in regulating expression of the mexEF operon. The relative importance of mexF for sediment fitness suggests that antibiotic efflux may be a required process for bacteria living in sediment systems.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗

Methods for evaluating clustering algorithms for gene expression data using a reference set of functional classes.

BACKGROUND: A cluster analysis is the most commonly performed procedure (often regarded as a first step) on a set of gene expression profiles. In most cases, a post hoc analysis is done to see if the genes in the same clusters can be functionally correlated. While past successes of such analyses have often been reported in a number of microarray studies (most of which used the standard hierarchical clustering, UPGMA, with one minus the Pearson's correlation coefficient as a measure of dissimilarity), often times such groupings could be misleading. More importantly, a systematic evaluation of the entire set of clusters produced by such unsupervised procedures is necessary since they also contain genes that are seemingly unrelated or may have more than one common function. Here we quantify the performance of a given unsupervised clustering algorithm applied to a given microarray study in terms of its ability to produce biologically meaningful clusters using a reference set of functional classes. Such a reference set may come from prior biological knowledge specific to a microarray study or may be formed using the growing databases of gene ontologies (GO) for the annotated genes of the relevant species. RESULTS: In this paper, we introduce two performance measures for evaluating the results of a clustering algorithm in its ability to produce biologically meaningful clusters. The first measure is a biological homogeneity index (BHI). As the name suggests, it is a measure of how biologically homogeneous the clusters are. This can be used to quantify the performance of a given clustering algorithm such as UPGMA in grouping genes for a particular data set and also for comparing the performance of a number of competing clustering algorithms applied to the same data set. The second performance measure is called a biological stability index (BSI). For a given clustering algorithm and an expression data set, it measures the consistency of the clustering algorithm's ability to produce biologically meaningful clusters when applied repeatedly to similar data sets. A good clustering algorithm should have high BHI and moderate to high BSI. We evaluated the performance of ten well known clustering algorithms on two gene expression data sets and identified the optimal algorithm in each case. The first data set deals with SAGE profiles of differentially expressed tags between normal and ductal carcinoma in situ samples of breast cancer patients. The second data set contains the expression profiles over time of positively expressed genes (ORF's) during sporulation of budding yeast. Two separate choices of the functional classes were used for this data set and the results were compared for consistency. CONCLUSION: Functional information of annotated genes available from various GO databases mined using ontology tools can be used to systematically judge the results of an unsupervised clustering algorithm as applied to a gene expression data set in clustering genes. This information could be used to select the right algorithm from a class of clustering algorithms for the given data set.

Algorithms↗

Comparative sequence analysis of a gene-dense region among closely related species of Drosophila melanogaster.

Comparative sequence analysis among closely related species is essential for investigating the evolution of non-coding sequences, which evolve more rapidly than protein-coding sequences. We sequenced the cytogenetic map 56F10-16, a gene-dense region of D. simulans and D. sechellia, closely related species to D. melanogaster. About 57 kb of the genomic sequences containing 19 genes were annotated from each species according to the corresponding region of the D. melanogaster genome. The order and orientation of genes were perfectly conserved among the three species, and no transposable elements were found. The rate of nucleotide substitutions in the non-coding sequences was lower than that at the fourfold-degenerate sites, implying functional constraints in the non-coding regions. The sequence information from three closely related species, allowed us to estimate the insertions and the deletions that may have occurred in the lineages of D. simulans and D. sechellia using the D. melanogaster sequence as an outgroup. The number of deletions was twice that of insertions for the introns of D. simulans. More remarkably, the deletion outnumbered insertions by 7.5 times for the intergenic sequences of D. sechellia. These results suggest that the non-coding sequences have been shortened by deletion biases. However, the deletion bias was lower than that previously estimated for pseudogenes, suggesting that the non-coding sequences are already rich in functional elements, possibly involved in the regulation of gene expression including transcription and pre-mRNA processing. These features of non-coding sequences may be common to other gene-dense regions contributing to the compactness of the Drosophila genome.

Animals↗

Automated protein structure homology modeling: a progress report.

Understanding the molecular function of proteins is greatly enhanced by insights gained from their three-dimensional structures. Since experimental structures are only available for a small fraction of proteins, computational methods for protein structure modeling play an increasingly important role. Comparative protein structure modeling is currently the most accurate method, yielding models suitable for a wide spectrum of applications, such as structure-guided drug development or virtual screening. Stable and reliable automated prediction pipelines have been developed to apply large-scale comparative modeling to whole genomes or entire sequence databases. Model repositories give access to these annotated and evaluated models. In this review, we will discuss recent developments in automated comparative modeling and provide selected examples illustrating the use of homology models.

Animals↗

Fine specificity and sequence of antibodies directed against the ectodomain of matrix protein 2 of influenza A virus.

The ectodomain of matrix protein 2 (M2e) has remained remarkably conserved amongst human influenza A viruses and is a target for Abs with protective activity. For these reasons, M2e is being investigated for its potential as a broadly protective influenza A virus vaccine. Here, we report on the fine specificity and sequence of seven M2e-specific mAbs isolated from three BALB/c mice after different immunization protocols. The mAbs recognized epitopes comprised within a 13aa long peptide corresponding to M2e(4-16). They originated from 4 distinct precursor B cells and showed a highly restricted variable (V) gene usage, in that their heavy chain V regions were all formed by the same V(H), D and J(H) gene segments and their light chain V regions made use of only two distinct Vkappa genes (Vkappa19-15/IGKV6-15 and Vkappa8-30/IGKV8-30; NCBI/IMGT annotation, respectively). The consensus sequence of the expressed V(H) genes belongs to the J558/HV1 family. It showed 96% identity with the BALB/c germline gene J558.n/IGHV1S137 and 100% identity with a V(H) gene expressed by several BALB/c B-1 B cells. This suggests that the consensus sequence is that of a functional BALB/c germline V(H) gene. The genetic restriction of this response may in part underlie the generally poor M2e-specific Ab response induced by infection.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Purification, microsequencing and cloning of spinach ATP-dependent phosphofructokinase link sequence and function for the plant enzyme.

Despite its importance in plant metabolism, no sequences of higher plant ATP-dependent phosphofructokinase (EC 2.7.1.11) are annotated in the databases. We have purified the enzyme from spinach leaves 309-fold to electrophoretic homogeneity. The purified enzyme was a homotetramer of approximately 52 kDa subunits with a specific activity of 600 mU x mg(-1) and a Km value for ATP of 81 microm. The purified enzyme was not activated by phosphate, but slightly inhibited instead, suggesting that it was the chloroplast isoform. The inclusion of adenosine 5'-(beta,gamma-imido)triphosphate was conducive to enzyme activity during the purification protocol. The sequences of eight tryptic peptides from the final protein preparation, which did not utilize pyrophosphate as a phosphoryl donor, were determined and an exactly corresponding cDNA was cloned. The sequence of enzymatically active spinach ATP-dependent phosphofructokinase suggests that a large family of genomics-derived higher plant sequences currently annotated in the databases as putative pyrophosphate-dependent phosphofructokinases according to sequence similarity is misannotated with respect to the cosubstrate.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Integrated Genome Mining and Bioactivity-Guided Isolation of Antimicrobial Peptides from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens BS4.

Bacterial resistance remains a critical global health challenge, driving the continuous search for novel antimicrobial agents. Bacillus amyloliquefaciens is a recognized repository of bioactive metabolites; however, its full biosynthetic potential requires integrated genomic and experimental validation. This study characterized the antimicrobial profile of B. amyloliquefaciens BS4 through a hybrid pipeline. Genome sequencing and de novo assembly revealed a 3.9&#xa0;Mb chromosome with a G&#x2009;+&#x2009;C content of 46.14%. Functional annotation identified 3,887 coding sequences, including pathways for siderophore biosynthesis and a complete bacilysin biosynthetic cluster. BGC analysis using antiSMASH v7.1.0 and BAGEL4 identified 18 biosynthetic gene clusters, while similarity network analysis via BiG-SCAPE highlighted unique singleton BGCs, indicating untapped biosynthetic diversity. Although in silico screening via Macrel predicted two putative cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), bioactivity-guided purification utilizing sequential RP-HPLC, and de novo sequencing revealed a distinct set of four active peptides. Notably, three of these sequences were identified as fragments derived from the BclA exosporium protein family, highlighting the structural proteome as a non-canonical source of antimicrobials. The purified fractions exhibited activity against M. luteus and E. coli, while displaying no significant hemolytic activity or cytotoxicity, even above the MIC values. Molecular docking further supported the interaction of these candidates with bacterial targets. Overall, this hybrid strategy effectively uncovers the antimicrobial complexity of BS4, revealing 'cryptic' peptide candidates with therapeutic potential.

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens BS4↗

Translational control genes in the sea urchin genome.

Sea urchin eggs and early cleavage stage embryos provide an example of regulated gene expression at the level of translation. The availability of the sea urchin genome offers the opportunity to investigate the "translational control" toolkit of this model system. The annotation of the genome reveals that most of the factors implicated in translational control are encoded by nonredundant genes in echinoderm, an advantage for future functional studies. In this paper, we focus on translation factors that have been shown or suggested to play crucial role in cell cycle and development of sea urchin embryos. Addressing the cap-binding translational control, three closely related eIF4E genes (class I, II, III) are present, whereas its repressor 4E-BP and its activator eIF4G are both encoded by one gene. Analysis of the class III eIF4E proteins in various phyla shows an echinoderm-specific amino acid substitution. Furthermore, an interaction site between eIF4G and poly(A)-binding protein is uncovered in the sea urchin eIF4G proteins and is conserved in metazoan evolution. In silico screening of the sea urchin genome has uncovered potential new regulators of eIF4E sharing the common eIF4E recognition motif. Taking together, these data provide new insights regarding the strong requirement of cap-dependent translation following fertilization. The genome analysis gives insights on the complexity of eEF1B structure and motifs of functional relevance, involved in the translational control of gene expression at the level of elongation. Finally, because deregulation of translation process can lead to diseases and tumor formation in humans, the sea urchin orthologs of human genes implicated in human diseases and signaling pathways regulating translation were also discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

A fixed-point alignment technique for detection of recurrent and common sequence motifs associated with biological features.

A fixed-point alignment analysis technique is presented which is designed to locate common sequence motifs in collections of proteins or nucleic acids. Initially a program aligns a collection of sequences by a common sequence pattern or known biological feature. The common pattern or feature (fixed-point) may be a user-specified sequence string or a known sequence position like mRNA start site, which may be taken directly from the annotated feature table of GenBank. Once all alignment markers are located, the sequences are scanned for occurrences of given oligomers within a specified span both upstream and downstream of the fixed-point. The occurrences may then be plotted as a function of the position relative to the fixed-point, displayed as an actual sequence alignment or selectively summarized via various program options. Applications of the technique are discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

How not to be seen: predicting unseen enzyme functions using contrastive learning.

MOTIVATION: Predicting enzyme function from its sequence is still an unsolved problem in the life sciences. Moreover, with the explosion of annotated genome data, we are inundated with potential enzymatic sequences that have not yet been biochemically characterized. While it is not possible to assign a not-yet-existing label to such a sequence, there is high value in placing the sequence as accurately as possible in known function space. Doing so can help provide more accurate falsifiable hypotheses for experimentalists wishing to characterize enzymes from specific functional families. RESULTS: Here we present a contrastive learning algorithm for predicting enzyme function from sequence. Our method, EnzPlacer, predicts the third, second, and first EC numbers for a protein whose fourth EC number is not in the training corpus. This novel prediction mechanism accurately places a protein sequence within a narrowed-down functional context, even if the precise function remains unknown. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: EnzPlacer and data is available at https://github.com/drxiangma/EnzPlacer under a GPL3 license.

Enzymes↗

MODBASE, a database of annotated comparative protein structure models, and associated resources.

MODBASE (http://salilab.org/modbase) is a relational database of annotated comparative protein structure models for all available protein sequences matched to at least one known protein structure. The models are calculated by MODPIPE, an automated modeling pipeline that relies on the MODELLER package for fold assignment, sequence-structure alignment, model building and model assessment (http:/salilab.org/modeller). MODBASE uses the MySQL relational database management system for flexible querying and CHIMERA for viewing the sequences and structures (http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/). MODBASE is updated regularly to reflect the growth in protein sequence and structure databases, as well as improvements in the software for calculating the models. For ease of access, MODBASE is organized into different data sets. The largest data set contains 1,26,629 models for domains in 659,495 out of 1,182,126 unique protein sequences in the complete Swiss-Prot/TrEMBL database (August 25, 2003); only models based on alignments with significant similarity scores and models assessed to have the correct fold despite insignificant alignments are included. Another model data set supports target selection and structure-based annotation by the New York Structural Genomics Research Consortium; e.g. the 53 new structures produced by the consortium allowed us to characterize structurally 24,113 sequences. MODBASE also contains binding site predictions for small ligands and a set of predicted interactions between pairs of modeled sequences from the same genome. Our other resources associated with MODBASE include a comprehensive database of multiple protein structure alignments (DBALI, http://salilab.org/dbali) as well as web servers for automated comparative modeling with MODPIPE (MODWEB, http://salilab. org/modweb), modeling of loops in protein structures (MODLOOP, http://salilab.org/modloop) and predicting functional consequences of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPWEB, http://salilab. org/snpweb).

Amino Acid Sequence↗