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By the end of 2002, we witnessed the landmark submission of the 100th complete genome sequence in the databases. An overview of these genomes reveals certain interesting trends and provides valuable insights into possible future developments.
During the course of our large-scale genome analysis a conserved domain, currently detectable only in the genomes of Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans and Anopheles gambiae, has been identified. The function of this domain is currently unknown and no function annotation is provided for this domain in the publicly available genomic, protein family and sequence databases. The search for the homologues of this domain in the non-redundant sequence database using PSI-BLAST, resulted in identification of distant relationship between this family and the alkaline phosphatase-like superfamily, which includes families of aryl sulfatase, N-acetylgalactosomine-4-sulfatase, alkaline phosphatase and 2,3-bisphosphoglycerate-independent phosphoglycerate mutase (iPGM). The fold recognition procedures showed that this new domain could adopt a similar 3-D fold as for this superfamily. Most of the phosphatases and sulfatases of this superfamily are characterized by functional residues Ser and Cys respectively in the topologically equivalent positions. This functionally important site aligns with Ser/Thr in the members of the new family. Additionally, set of residues responsible for a metal binding site in phosphatases and sulphtases are conserved in the new family. The in-depth analysis suggests that the new family could possess phosphatase activity.
To facilitate the analysis of gene regulatory regions of the mouse genome, we developed a CisView (http://lgsun.grc.nia.nih.gov/cisview), a browser and database of genome-wide potential transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) that were identified using 134 position-weight matrices and 219 sequence patterns from various sources and were presented with the information about sequence conservation, neighboring genes and their structures, GO annotations, protein domains, DNA repeats and CpG islands. Analysis of the distribution of TFBSs revealed that many TFBSs (N = 145) were over-represented near transcription start sites. We also identified potential cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) defined as clusters of conserved TFBSs in the entire mouse genome. Out of 739 074 CRMs, 157 442 had a significantly higher regulatory potential score than semi-random sequences generated with a 3rd-order Markov process. The CisView browser provides a user-friendly computer environment for studying transcription regulation on a whole-genome scale and can also be used for interpreting microarray experiments and identifying putative targets of transcription factors.
MOTIVATION: The sheer volume and variety of genomic content within microbial communities makes metagenomics a field rich in biomedical knowledge. To traverse these complex communities and their vast unknowns, metagenomic studies often depend on distinct reference databases, such as the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB), the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and the Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center (BV-BRC), for various analytical purposes. These databases are crucial for the genetic and functional annotation of microbial communities. Nevertheless, the inconsistent nomenclature or identifiers of these databases present challenges for effective integration, representation, and utilization. Knowledge graphs (KGs) offer an appropriate solution by organizing biological entities from different databases to standardized identifiers, allowing their interrelations to be captured into a cohesive network regardless of the naming conventions used in each source. The graph structure not only facilitates the unveiling of hidden patterns but also enriches our biological understanding with deeper insights. Despite KGs having shown potential in various biomedical fields, their application in metagenomics remains underexplored. RESULTS: We present MetagenomicKG, a novel knowledge graph specifically tailored for metagenomic analysis. MetagenomicKG integrates taxonomic, functional, and pathogenesis-related information on the human microbiome sourced from various databases, and further connects these with existing biomedical KGs to expand the biological network. Through various case studies involving the human microbiome, we demonstrate its utility in enabling hypothesis generation regarding the relationships between microbes and diseases, generating sample-specific graph embeddings, and providing robust pathogen prediction. CODE AVAILABILITY: The source code and technical details for constructing the MetagenomicKG and reproducing all analyses are available on GitHub at https://github.com/KoslickiLab/MetagenomicKG. The data used in this manuscript, including the pre-built files and use case input data, are archived on Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17546861.
The concept behind the first Molecular Approaches to Malaria meeting, held 1-5 February 2000 in Lorne, Australia, was ahead of its time; to convene a meeting of malaria researchers, database developers and genomics scientists, and to discuss how genomic sciences and their relevant disciplines could be applied to solve important problems in malaria research. The success of the second Molecular Approaches to Malaria meeting, held 1-5 February 2004 in the same place, together with the influence of genomics on malaria research, is testament to the vision that the organizers had at the first meeting. This review attempts to capture some of the current efforts in the post-genomics era of malaria research and highlights the approaches discussed at the Molecular Approaches to Malaria 2004 meeting.
Insertional mutagenesis is a powerful tool for generating knockout mutations that facilitate associating biological functions with as yet uncharacterized open reading frames (ORFs) identified by genomic sequencing or represented in EST databases. We have generated a collection of Dissociation (Ds) transposon lines with insertions on all 5 Arabidopsis chromosomes. Here we report the insertion sites in 260 independent single-transposon lines, derived from four different Ds donor sites. We amplified and determined the genomic sequence flanking each transposon, then mapped its insertion site by identity of the flanking sequences to the corresponding sequence in the Arabidopsis genome database. This constitutes the largest collection of sequence-mapped Ds insertion sites unbiased by selection against the donor site. Insertion site clusters have been identified around three of the four donor sites on chromosomes 1 and 5, as well as near the nucleolus organizers on chromosomes 2 and 4. The distribution of insertions between ORFs and intergenic sequences is roughly proportional to the ratio of genic to intergenic sequence. Within ORFs, insertions cluster near the translational start codon, although we have not detected insertion site selectivity at the nucleotide sequence level. A searchable database of insertion site sequences for the 260 transposon insertion sites is available at http://sgio2.biotec.psu.edu/sr. This and other collections of Arabidopsis lines with sequence-identified transposon insertion sites are a valuable genetic resource for functional genomics studies because the transposon location is precisely known, the transposon can be remobilized to generate revertants, and the Ds insertion can be used to initiate further local mutagenesis.
EXProt is a non-redundant protein database containing a selection of entries from genome annotation projects and public databases, aimed at including only proteins with an experimentally verified function. In EXProt release 2.0 we have collected entries from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa community annotation project (PseudoCAP), the Escherichia coli genome and proteome database (GenProtEC) and the translated coding sequences from the Prokaryotes division of EMBL nucleotide sequence database, which are described as having an experimentally verified function. Each entry in EXProt has a unique ID number and contains information about the species, amino acid sequence, functional annotation and, in most cases, links to references in MEDLINE/PubMed and to the entry in the original database. EXProt is indexed in SRS at CMBI (http://www.cmbi.kun.nl/srs/) and can be searched with BLAST and FASTA through the EXProt web page (http://www.cmbi.kun.nl/EXProt/).
The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) is the primary database resource of the Japanese GenomeNet service (http://www.genome.ad.jp/) for understanding higher order functional meanings and utilities of the cell or the organism from its genome information. KEGG consists of the PATHWAY database for the computerized knowledge on molecular interaction networks such as pathways and complexes, the GENES database for the information about genes and proteins generated by genome sequencing projects, and the LIGAND database for the information about chemical compounds and chemical reactions that are relevant to cellular processes. In addition to these three main databases, limited amounts of experimental data for microarray gene expression profiles and yeast two-hybrid systems are stored in the EXPRESSION and BRITE databases, respectively. Furthermore, a new database, named SSDB, is available for exploring the universe of all protein coding genes in the complete genomes and for identifying functional links and ortholog groups. The data objects in the KEGG databases are all represented as graphs and various computational methods are developed to detect graph features that can be related to biological functions. For example, the correlated clusters are graph similarities which can be used to predict a set of genes coding for a pathway or a complex, as summarized in the ortholog group tables, and the cliques in the SSDB graph are used to annotate genes. The KEGG databases are updated daily and made freely available (http://www.genome.ad.jp/kegg/).
GELBANK is a publicly available database of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) gel patterns of proteomes from organisms with known genome information (available at http://gelbank.anl.gov and ftp://bioinformatics.anl.gov/gelbank/). Currently it includes 131 completed, mostly microbial proteomes available from the National Center for Biotechnology Information. A web interface allows the upload of 2D gel patterns and their annotation for registered users. The images are organized by species, tissue type, separation method, sample type and staining method. The database can be queried based on protein or 2DE-pattern attributes. A web interface allows registered users to assign molecular weight and pH gradient profiles to their own 2D gel patterns as well as to link protein identifications to a given spot on the pattern. The website presents all of the submitted 2D gel patterns where the end-user can dynamically display the images or parts of images along with molecular weight, pH profile information and linked protein identification. A collection of images can be selected for the creation of animations from which the user can select sub-regions of interest and unlimited 2D gel patterns for visualization. The website currently presents 233 identifications for 81 gel patterns for Homo sapiens, Methanococcus jannaschii, Pyro coccus furiosus, Shewanella oneidensis, Escherichia coli and Deinococcus radiodurans.
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Mutations are the source of genetic variation and diversity; by their effect, some are neutral, others are pathogenic. In contemporary genetics, mutations appear at the interface between genomics (structural and functional) and genetics (heredity), where they serve gene discovery and mapping (genomics) and generate challenges to modify their phenotypic effects (medical genetics). Assuming the human genome harbours 80,000 transcribed genes each possessing at least 100 different (germline) alleles in a typical population, how then to record and recover data on at least 8 million human alleles? Bioinformatics is the essential resource to create the corresponding accessible digital libraries (genomic and locus-specific mutation databases) for this purpose, a goal to which The HUGO Mutation Database Initiative (Science 279: 10-11, 1998) aspires. Guidelines now exist for naming alleles (Hum Mutat 11: 1-3, 1998). The principles behind the practice are illustrated by PAHdb (http:/(/)www.mcgill.ca/ pahdb), a prototype locus-specific mutation database (NAR 26: 220-225, 1998), and by prototype genomic mutation databases (HGMD (NAR 26: 285-287, 1998), http:/(/)www.uwcm.ac.uk/uwcm/mg/hgmd0.h tml; the EBI mutation database, http:/(/)www2.ebi.ac.uk/mutations/; and OMIM, http:/(/)www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/Omim.html).
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We have screened a large tomato EST database against the Arabidopsis genomic sequence and report here the identification of a set of 1025 genes (referred to as a conserved ortholog set, or COS markers) that are single or low copy in both genomes (as determined by computational screens and DNA gel blot hybridization) and that have remained relatively stable in sequence since the early radiation of dicotyledonous plants. These genes were annotated, and a large portion could be assigned to putative functional categories associated with basic metabolic processes, such as energy-generating processes and the biosynthesis and degradation of cellular building blocks. We further demonstrate, through computational screens (e.g., against a Medicago truncatula database) and direct hybridization on genomic DNA of diverse plant species, that these COS markers also are conserved in the genomes of other plant families. Finally, we show that this gene set can be used for comparative mapping studies between highly divergent genomes such as those of tomato and Arabidopsis. This set of COS markers, identified computationally and experimentally, may further studies on comparative genomes and phylogenetics and elucidate the nature of genes conserved throughout plant evolution.
The Vertebrate Genome Annotation (Vega) database is a community resource for browsing manual annotation from a variety of vertebrate genomes of finished sequence (http://vega.sanger.ac.uk). Vega is different from other genome browsers as it has a standardised classification of genes which encompasses pseudogenes and non-coding transcripts. The data is manually curated, which is more accurate at identifying splice variants, pseudogenes poly(A) features, non-coding and complex gene structures and arrangements than current automated methods. The database also contains annotation from regions, not just whole genomes, and displays multiple species annotation (human, mouse, dog and zebrafish) for comparative analysis. Vega encourages community feedback that results in annotation updates and manual annotation of finished vertebrate sequence.
The explosion in the number of complete genomes over the past decade has spawned a new and exciting discipline, that of comparative genomics. To exploit the full potential of this approach requires the development of novel algorithms, databases and software which are sophisticated enough to draw meaningful comparisons between complete genome sequences and are widely accessible to the scientific community at large. This article reviews progress towards the development of computational tools and databases for organizing and extracting biological meaning from the comparison of large collections of genomes.
Investigation of exon-intron gene structures is a non-trivial task due to enormous expansions of the eukaryotic genomes, great variety of gene forms, and the imperfectness in sequence data. A number of available informational systems on various gene characteristics complement each other and are indispensable for many genomic studies. Among them, the Exon-Intron Database (EID) is a good choice for large-scale computational examination of exon/intron structure and splicing. It has many internal filters that control for sequence quality, consistency of gene descriptions, accordance to standards, and possible errors. New innovations in EID are described. The collection of exons and introns has been extended beyond coding regions and current versions of EID contain data on untranslated regions of gene sequences as well. Intron-less genes are included as a special part of EID. For species with entirely sequenced genomes, species-specific databases have been generated. A novel Mammalian Orthologous Intron Database (MOID) has been introduced which includes the full set of introns that come from orthologous genes that have the same positions relative to the reading frames. Examples of statistical analyses of gene sequences using EID are provided. We present the latest data on our comparison of intron positions in 11,025 orthologous genes of human, mouse and rat, and find no convincing cases of intron gain. We discuss relevant data-quality issues of genomic databases. In particular, 5% of genes in genomic databases contain internal stop codons. This fact is due to a combination of biological reasons and also to errors in sequence annotations. The EID is freely available at www.meduohio.edu/bioinfo/eid/.
The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) has made an effort to collect as much data as possible mainly from Japanese researchers. The increase rates of the data we collected, annotated and released to the public in the past year are 43% for the number of entries and 52% for the number of bases. The increase rates are accelerated even after the human genome was sequenced, because sequencing technology has been remarkably advanced and simplified, and research in life science has been shifted from the gene scale to the genome scale. In addition, we have developed the Genome Information Broker (GIB, http://gib.genes.nig.ac.jp) that now includes more than 50 complete microbial genome and Arabidopsis genome data. We have also developed a database of the human genome, the Human Genomics Studio (HGS, http://studio.nig.ac.jp). HGS provides one with a set of sequences being as continuous as possible in any one of the 24 chromosomes. Both GIB and HGS have been updated incorporating newly available data and retrieval tools.
BACKGROUND: Minor Histocompatibility (H) antigen mismatches significantly influence the outcome of HLA-matched allogeneic stem cell transplantation. The molecular identification of human H antigens is increasing rapidly. In parallel, clinical application of minor H antigen typing has gained interest. So far, relevant and simple tools to analyze the minor H antigens in a quick and reliable way are lacking. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS: We developed a uniform PCR with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) for 10 different autosomal minor H antigens and H-Y. This genomic minor H antigen typing methodology allows easy incorporation in the routine HLA typing procedures. DNA from previously typed EBV-LCL was used to validate the methodology. To facilitate easy interpretation for clinical purposes, a minor H database named dbMinor (http://www.lumc.nl/dbminor) was developed. Input of the minor H antigen typing results subsequently provides all relevant information for a given patient/donor pair and additional information on the putative graft-versus-host, graft-versus-tumor and host-versus-graft reactivities. SIGNIFICANCE: A simple, uniform and rapid methodology was developed enabling determination of minor H antigen genotypes of all currently identified minor H antigens. A dbMinor database was developed to interpret the genomic typing for its potential clinical relevance. The combination of the minor H antigen genomic typing methodology with the online dbMinor database and applications facilitates the clinical application of minor H antigens anti-tumor targets after stem cell transplantation.