miRTil: An extensive repository for Nile Tilapia microRNA next generation sequencing data

Nile tilapia is the third most cultivated fish worldwide and a novel model species for evolutionary studies. Aiming to improve productivity and contribute to the selection of traits of economic impact, biotechnological approaches have been intensively applied to species enhancement. In this sense, recent studies have focused on the multiple roles played by microRNAs (miRNAs) in the post-transcriptional regulation of protein-coding genes involved in the emergence of phenotypes with relevance for aquaculture. However, there is still a growing demand for a reference resource dedicated to integrating Nile Tilapia miRNA information, obtained from both experimental and in silico approaches, and facilitating the analysis and interpretation of RNA sequencing data. Here, we present an open repository dedicated to Nile Tilapia miRNAs: the "miRTil database". The database stores data on 734 mature miRNAs identified in 11 distinct tissues and five key developmental stages. The database provides detailed information about miRNA structure, genomic context, predicted targets, expression profiles, and relative 5p/3p arm usage. Additionally, miRTil also includes a comprehensive pre-computed miRNA-target interaction network containing 4936 targets and 19,580 interactions

The SYSCID map: a graphical and computational resource of molecular mechanisms across rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and inflammatory bowel disease

Chronic inflammatory diseases (CIDs), including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are thought to emerge from an impaired complex network of inter- and intracellular biochemical interactions among several proteins and small chemical compounds under strong influence of genetic and environmental factors. CIDs are characterised by shared and disease-specific processes, which is reflected by partially overlapping genetic risk maps and pathogenic cells (e.g., T cells). Their pathogenesis involves a plethora of intracellular pathways. The translation of the research findings on CIDs molecular mechanisms into effective treatments is challenging and may explain the low remission rates despite modern targeted therapies. Modelling CID-related causal interactions as networks allows us to tackle the complexity at a systems level and improve our understanding of the interplay of key pathways. Here we report the construction, description, and initial applications of the SYSCID map (https://syscid.elixir-luxembourg.org/), a mechanistic causal interaction network covering the molecular crosstalk between IBD, RA and SLE. We demonstrate that the map serves as an interactive, graphical review of IBD, RA and SLE molecular mechanisms, and helps to understand the complexity of omics data. Examples of such application are illustrated using transcriptome data from time-series gene expression profiles following anti-TNF treatment and data from genome-wide associations studies that enable us to suggest potential effects to altered pathways and propose possible mechanistic biomarkers of treatment response

COVID19 Disease Map, a computational knowledge repository of virus-host interaction mechanisms.

Funder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und ForschungFunder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)We need to effectively combine the knowledge from surging literature with complex datasets to propose mechanistic models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, improving data interpretation and predicting key targets of intervention. Here, we describe a large-scale community effort to build an open access, interoperable and computable repository of COVID-19 molecular mechanisms. The COVID-19 Disease Map (C19DMap) is a graphical, interactive representation of disease-relevant molecular mechanisms linking many knowledge sources. Notably, it is a computational resource for graph-based analyses and disease modelling. To this end, we established a framework of tools, platforms and guidelines necessary for a multifaceted community of biocurators, domain experts, bioinformaticians and computational biologists. The diagrams of the C19DMap, curated from the literature, are integrated with relevant interaction and text mining databases. We demonstrate the application of network analysis and modelling approaches by concrete examples to highlight new testable hypotheses. This framework helps to find signatures of SARS-CoV-2 predisposition, treatment response or prioritisation of drug candidates. Such an approach may help deal with new waves of COVID-19 or similar pandemics in the long-term perspective

Drug-target identification in COVID-19 disease mechanisms using computational systems biology approaches

IntroductionThe COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing. MethodsExtensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms. Our framework can link biomolecules from omics data analysis and computational modelling to dysregulated pathways in a cell-, tissue- or patient-specific manner. Drug repurposing using text mining and AI-assisted analysis identified potential drugs, chemicals and microRNAs that could target the identified key factors.ResultsResults revealed drugs already tested for anti-COVID-19 efficacy, providing a mechanistic context for their mode of action, and drugs already in clinical trials for treating other diseases, never tested against COVID-19. DiscussionThe key advance is that the proposed framework is versatile and expandable, offering a significant upgrade in the arsenal for virus-host interactions and other complex pathologies

Construção e análise da rede integrada de interações entre genes humanos envolvida com a regulação da trnsição G1/S do ciclo celular plea adesão à matriz extracelular

Virtualmente, todas as células normais, com exceção das células hematopoieticas, precisam estar aderi das à matriz extracelular para que elas possam se proliferar. Na ausência de adesão, essas células não se proliferam mais e acabam sofrendo apoptose. Porém, após transformação oncogênica, as células adquirem a capacidade de proliferação na ausência de adesão à matriz extracelular. Essa capacidade, cuja base molecular está na regulação anormal da transição G tiS do ciclo celular pela adesão, é uma das propriedades fundamentais das células cancerosas e também requisito para que essas células adquiriam sua capacidade metastática. Como as metástases correspondem a aproximadamente 90% das mortes por câncer, a elucidação dos mecanismos moleculares subjacentes à regulação da transição G IIS do ciclo celular pela adesão à matriz extracelular é, portanto, essencial para o desenvolvimento de drogas que possam inibir a formação das metástases. Com o intuito de elucidar esses mecanismos, nós adotamos neste trabalho uma abordagem estritamente computacional baseada em teoria das redes e aprendizado de máquina através do desenvolvimento de novos métodos de (i) construção de redes que representam a provável regulação entre dois diferentes processos (nesse caso, regulação da transição G l/S pela adesão à matriz extracelular), (á) predição de interações oncogênicas, (iii) determinação de sub-redes de vias de sinalização oncogênica entre dois genes de interesse em uma rede (batizado de graph2sig) e (iv) predição de potenciais alvos de drogas. A rede potencialmente envolvida na regulação da transição G l/S do ciclo celular pela matriz extracelular construída (Gccam) possui ~ 2000 genes e ~ 20.000 interações e representa ~ 78% dos processos biológicos conhecidamente envolvidos nessa regulação...Virtually all normal cells, excluding the hematopoietic cells, require anchorage to the extracellular matrix for their proliferation and survival. When such cells are deprived of anchorage, they arrest in the G1 phase of the cell cycle and eventually undergo apoptosis. Cancer cells, on the other hand, acquire the ability to perform anchorage-independent proliferation as a result of the disruption of the regulation of the G1/S cell cycle transition by adhesion to extracellular matrix. Anchorage-independent proliferation is the foundation for tumorigenicity and metastatic capability of cancer cells. As metastases are the cause of 90% of human cancer deaths, it is crucial to decipher the molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of the G1/S cell cycle transition by the adhesion to extracellular cell matrix. In order to decipher such mechanisms, we developed in this present work machine learning and graph theory-based computational methods for the (i) construction of networks representing the regulatory relationships between two biological processes of interest, (ii) prediction of oncogenic interactions, (iii) extraction of oncogenic signaling subnetworks between two genes and (iv) prediction of druggable genes. The network representing the regulatory relationships between G1/S cell cycle transition and adhesion to extracellular matrix, Gccam, is comprised by 2,000 genes and 20,000 interactions. Moreover, 78% of known biological process involved in the regulation of G1/S cell cycle transition by adhesion to extracellular matrix are embedded in Gccam. Through the prediction of oncogenic interactions and the extraction of oncogenic signaling subnetworks between EGFR and CDC6, genes that encode proteins likely to be relevant to anchorage-independent proliferation, we postulate the following hypotheses for the molecular mechanisms underlying the anchorage-independent proliferation: cancer... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP

Cooperative RNA Polymerase Molecules Behavior on a Stochastic Sequence-Dependent Model for Transcription Elongation

The transcription process is crucial to life and the enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP) is the major component of the transcription machinery. The development of single-molecule techniques, such as magnetic and optical tweezers, atomic-force microscopy and single-molecule fluorescence, increased our understanding of the transcription process and complements traditional biochemical studies. Based on these studies, theoretical models have been proposed to explain and predict the kinetics of the RNAP during the polymerization, highlighting the results achieved by models based on the thermodynamic stability of the transcription elongation complex. However, experiments showed that if more than one RNAP initiates from the same promoter, the transcription behavior slightly changes and new phenomenona are observed. We proposed and implemented a theoretical model that considers collisions between RNAPs and predicts their cooperative behavior during multi-round transcription generalizing the Bai et al. stochastic sequence-dependent model. In our approach, collisions between elongating enzymes modify their transcription rate values. We performed the simulations in Mathematica® and compared the results of the single and the multiple-molecule transcription with experimental results and other theoretical models. Our multi-round approach can recover several expected behaviors, showing that the transcription process for the studied sequences can be accelerated up to 48% when collisions are allowed: the dwell times on pause sites are reduced as well as the distance that the RNAPs backtracked from backtracking sites. © 2013 Costa et al

An ensemble framework for identifying essential proteins

Many centrality measures have been proposed to mine and characterize the correlations between network topological properties and protein essentiality. However, most of them show limited prediction accuracy,and the number of common predicted essential proteins by different methods is very small.Results:In this paper, an ensemble framework is proposed which integrates gene expression data and protein-protein interaction networks (PINs). It aims to improve the prediction accuracy of basic centrality measures. The idea behind this ensemble framework is that different protein-protein interactions (PPIs) may show different contributions to protein essentiality. Five standard centrality measures (degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality,eigenvector centrality, and subgraph centrality) are integrated into the ensemble framework respectively. We evaluated the performance of the proposed ensemble framework using yeast PINs and gene expression data. The results show that it can considerably improve the prediction accuracy of the five centrality measures individually. It can also remarkably increase the number of common predicted essential proteins among those predicted by each centrality measure individually and enable each centrality measure to find more low-degree essential proteins.Conclusions:This paper demonstrates that it is valuable to differentiate the contributions of different PPIs for identifying essential proteins based on network topological characteristics. The proposed ensemble framework is a successful paradigm to this end

RNAP position in function of reaction time during a simulation of the <i>MRA</i>:

<p>We can see the kinetic behavior of the RNAP during the <i>MRA</i> for sequence D167: the evolution in time of the position of the enzyme in the DNA strand. Each region represents the space occupied by the enzyme during transcription, and the colors indicate the binding order to the DNA strand. Note that there is no overlap between the regions. Points where the regions touch each other indicate the occurrence of a collision between the molecules. The colored regions represent the space occupied by the enzymes during the reaction. Sites where molecules take longer dwell time to continue transcription and backtracking sites are easy to identify. The collisions between the molecules usually occur at the pause candidate sites.</p