The Vienna RNA Websuite

The Vienna RNA Websuite is a comprehensive collection of tools for folding, design and analysis of RNA sequences. It provides a web interface to the most commonly used programs of the Vienna RNA package. Among them, we find folding of single and aligned sequences, prediction of RNA–RNA interactions, and design of sequences with a given structure. Additionally, we provide analysis of folding landscapes using the barriers program and structural RNA alignments using LocARNA. The web server together with software packages for download is freely accessible at http://rna.tbi.univie.ac.at/

Full-genome characterization and genetic evolution of West African isolates of Bagaza virus

Bagaza virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, first isolated in 1966 in Central African Republic. It has currently been identified in mosquito pools collected in the field in West and Central Africa. Emergence in wild birds in Europe and serological evidence in encephalitis patients in India raise questions on its genetic evolution and the diversity of isolates circulating in Africa. To better understand genetic diversity and evolution of Bagaza virus, we describe the full-genome characterization of 11 West African isolates, sampled from 1988 to 2014. Parameters such as genetic distances, N-glycosylation patterns, recombination events, selective pressures, and its codon adaptation to human genes are assessed. Our study is noteworthy for the observation of N-glycosylation and recombination in Bagaza virus and provides insight into its Indian origin from the 13th century. Interestingly, evidence of Bagaza virus codon adaptation to human house-keeping genes is also observed to be higher than those of other flaviviruses well known in human infections. Genetic variations on genome of West African Bagaza virus could play an important role in generating diversity and may promote Bagaza virus adaptation to other vertebrates and become an important threat in human health

Association of TLR7 Variants with AIDS-Like Disease and AIDS Vaccine Efficacy in Rhesus Macaques

In HIV infection, TLR7-triggered IFN-α production exerts a direct antiviral effect through the inhibition of viral replication, but may also be involved in immune pathogenesis leading to AIDS. TLR7 could also be an important mediator of vaccine efficacy. In this study, we analyzed polymorphisms in the X-linked TLR7 gene in the rhesus macaque model of AIDS. Upon resequencing of the TLR7 gene in 36 rhesus macaques of Indian origin, 12 polymorphic sites were detected. Next, we identified three tightly linked single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) as being associated with survival time. Genotyping of 119 untreated, simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected male rhesus macaques, including an ‘MHC adjusted’ subset, revealed that the three TLR7 SNPs are also significantly associated with set-point viral load. Surprisingly, this effect was not observed in 72 immunized SIV-infected male monkeys. We hypothesize (i) that SNP c.13G>A in the leader peptide is causative for the observed genotype-phenotype association and that (ii) the underlying mechanism is related to RNA secondary structure formation. Therefore, we investigated a fourth SNP (c.-17C>T), located 17 bp upstream of the ATG translation initiation codon, that is also potentially capable of influencing RNA structure. In c.13A carriers, neither set-point viral load nor survival time were related to the c.-17C>T genotype. In c.13G carriers, by contrast, the c.-17C allele was significantly associated with prolonged survival. Again, no such association was detected among immunized SIV-infected macaques. Our results highlight the dual role of TLR7 in immunodeficiency virus infection and vaccination and imply that it may be important to control human AIDS vaccine trials, not only for MHC genotype, but also for TLR7 genotype

Improving Innate Immunity Through Genetic Editing of the 5’ Untranslated Region of Interferon Regulatory Factor 7

Disease decreases production efficiency and kills millions of animals across all types of livestock operations every year. This is severely detrimental to both animal producers and consumers from an economic and overall food supply standpoint. Unfortunately, many current options for disease control prove to be impractical in various situations. Vaccines are costly to administer, can require several boosters over extensive periods of time to become effective, can become ineffective due to rapid viral mutations, and some diseases still do not have effective treatments or vaccines. Therefore, alternative methods of disease control must be implemented in order to better protect livestock and the agricultural industry. Type I interferons (IFN) are the first line of defense against viral pathogen invasions in animals and humans. Type I IFNs are activated by the master regulator, interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF-7). In turn, IRF-7 can be inhibited by 2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthase-like protein 1 (OASL-1), eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4E-BP1), and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 2 (4E-BP2), (Honda, Yanai et al. 2005). OASL-1, 4E-BP, and 4E-BP2 negatively regulate IRF-7 translation and therefore, the transcription of type I IFN stimulation (Lee, Kim et al. 2013). Translational regulation of IRF-7 by OASL-1, 4E-BP1, and 4E-BP2 occurs at the complex secondary structure of the 5’ untranslated region (UTR) upstream of the translational start site. The IRF-7 5’ UTR forms several stem loops, allowing for the binding of these inhibitory proteins, therefore, reducing the number of IRF-7 5’ UTR stem loop structures may alter the binding of negative regulators and decrease IRF-7 inhibition. Genomic editing using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) CRISPR/Cas9 system will be used to alter the IRF-7 5’ UTR structure via the stem loop sequence. We hypothesize that these DNA sequence modifications will inhibit the binding of translational factors and lead to increased IRF-7 expression; ultimately causing an increased interferon response, resulting in improved resistance to viruses. This technology may also potentially increase resistance against other pathogens, creating genetically engineered animals with improved immune systems

Protein dimerization generates bistability in positive feedback loops

Bistability plays an important role in cellular memory and cell fate determination. A positive feedback loop can generate bistability if it contains ultrasensitive molecular reactions. It is often difficult to detect bistability based on such molecular mechanisms due to its intricate interaction with cellular growth. We constructed transcriptional feedback loops in yeast. To eliminate growth alterations, we reduced the protein levels of the transcription factors by tuning the translation rates over two orders of magnitude with designed RNA stem-loops. We modulated two ultrasensitive reactions, homodimerization and the cooperative binding of the transcription factor to the promoter. Either of them is sufficient to generate bistability on its own and when acting together, a particularly robust bistability emerges. This bistability persists even in the presence of a negative feedback loop. Since protein homodimerization is ubiquitous, it is likely to play a major role in the behavior of regulatory networks

A framework for automated enrichment of functionally significant inverted repeats in whole genomes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RNA transcripts from genomic sequences showing dyad symmetry typically adopt hairpin-like, cloverleaf, or similar structures that act as recognition sites for proteins. Such structures often are the precursors of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) sequences like microRNA (miRNA) and small-interfering RNA (siRNA) that have recently garnered more functional significance than in the past. Genomic DNA contains hundreds of thousands of such inverted repeats (IRs) with varying degrees of symmetry. But by collecting statistically significant information from a known set of ncRNA, we can sort these IRs into those that are likely to be functional.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A novel method was developed to scan genomic DNA for partially symmetric inverted repeats and the resulting set was further refined to match miRNA precursors (pre-miRNA) with respect to their density of symmetry, statistical probability of the symmetry, length of stems in the predicted hairpin secondary structure, and the GC content of the stems. This method was applied on the <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it> genome and validated against the set of 190 known Arabidopsis pre-miRNA in the miRBase database. A preliminary scan for IRs identified 186 of the known pre-miRNA but with 714700 pre-miRNA candidates. This large number of IRs was further refined to 483908 candidates with 183 pre-miRNA identified and further still to 165371 candidates with 171 pre-miRNA identified (i.e. with 90% of the known pre-miRNA retained).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>165371 candidates for potentially functional miRNA is still too large a set to warrant wet lab analyses, such as northern blotting, on all of them. Hence additional filters are needed to further refine the number of candidates while still retaining most of the known miRNA. These include detection of promoters and terminators, homology analyses, location of candidate relative to coding regions, and better secondary structure prediction algorithms. The software developed is designed to easily accommodate such additional filters with a minimal experience in Perl.</p

A Graph Grammar for Modelling RNA Folding

We propose a new approach for modelling the process of RNA folding as a graph transformation guided by the global value of free energy. Since the folding process evolves towards a configuration in which the free energy is minimal, the global behaviour resembles the one of a self-adaptive system. Each RNA configuration is a graph and the evolution of configurations is constrained by precise rules that can be described by a graph grammar.Comment: In Proceedings GaM 2016, arXiv:1612.0105