A structured annotation frame for the transposable phages: A new proposed family “Saltoviridae” within the Caudovirales

AbstractEnterobacteriophage Mu is the best studied and paradigm member of the transposable phages. Mu-encoded proteins have been annotated in detail in UniProtKB and linked to a controlled vocabulary describing the various steps involved in the phage lytic and lysogenic cycles.Transposable phages are ubiquitous temperate bacterial viruses with a dsDNA linear genome. Twenty-six of them, that infect α, β and γ-proteobacteria, have been sequenced. Their conserved properties are described. Based on these characteristics, we propose a reorganization of the Caudovirales, to allow for the inclusion of a “Saltoviridae” family and two newly proposed subfamilies, the “Myosaltovirinae” and “Siphosaltovirinae”. The latter could temporarily be included in the existing Myoviridae and Siphoviridae families

Contrôle de la morphologie des poudres par l'ajout de fondants : Application à un luminophore

National audienceCe travail porte sur l'amélioration du procédé de fabrication des luminophores et en particulier un phosphate de lanthane : LaPO4:Ce,Tb (LaCeT). L'influence de fondants carbonatés (Li2CO3, Na2CO3, K2CO3, ...) sur la taille et la forme des grains du luminophore y est décrite. Pour ce faire des analyses par microscopie électronique à balayage ont été effectuées. Des résultats concluants ont pu en être tirés : des grains de morphologie contrôlée (forme de sphères ou de plaquettes) et de taille adaptée (modulable de 0,1 à 10 μm) ont pu être synthétisés. Par ailleurs, la photoluminescence des poudres obtenues a été contrôlée et il a été montré que l'effet du fondant n'est pas dommageable aux propriétés optiques des luminophores finales

Cumulative indoor exposures to Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds (SVOCs) in France: the ECOS project.

International audienceSemivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) are widely used indoor as plasticizers, flame retardants, or pesticides. They are present in indoor environments both in air (as gas and suspended particles) and settled dust. Thus exposition to possibly harmful agents: (phthalates, polybromodiphenylethers, organophosphorous compounds...) occurs (Mitchell et al. 2007;Wu et al. 2007). Here is presented the framework of the ECOS project, which objective is to assess domestic cumulative exposure to these substances and associated health risks

ViralZone: a knowledge resource to understand virus diversity

The molecular diversity of viruses complicates the interpretation of viral genomic and proteomic data. To make sense of viral gene functions, investigators must be familiar with the virus host range, replication cycle and virion structure. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive resource bridging together textbook knowledge with genomic and proteomic sequences. ViralZone web resource (www.expasy.org/viralzone/) provides fact sheets on all known virus families/genera with easy access to sequence data. A selection of reference strains (RefStrain) provides annotated standards to circumvent the exponential increase of virus sequences. Moreover ViralZone offers a complete set of detailed and accurate virion picture

ViralZone: recent updates to the virus knowledge resource

ViralZone (http://viralzone.expasy.org) is a knowledge repository that allows users to learn about viruses including their virion structure, replication cycle and host-virus interactions. The information is divided into viral fact sheets that describe virion shape, molecular biology and epidemiology for each viral genus, with links to the corresponding annotated proteomes of UniProtKB. Each viral genus page contains detailed illustrations, text and PubMed references. This new update provides a linked view of viral molecular biology through 133 new viral ontology pages that describe common steps of viral replication cycles shared by several viral genera. This viral cell-cycle ontology is also represented in UniProtKB in the form of annotated keywords. In this way, users can navigate from the description of a replication-cycle event, to the viral genus concerned, and the associated UniProtKB protein record

Towards Viral Genome Annotation Standards, Report from the 2010 NCBI Annotation Workshop

Improvements in DNA sequencing technologies portend a new era in virology and could possibly lead to a giant leap in our understanding of viral evolution and ecology. Yet, as viral genome sequences begin to fill the world’s biological databases, it is critically important to recognize that the scientific promise of this era is dependent on consistent and comprehensive genome annotation. With this in mind, the NCBI Genome Annotation Workshop recently hosted a study group tasked with developing sequence, function, and metadata annotation standards for viral genomes. This report describes the issues involved in viral genome annotation and reviews policy recommendations presented at the NCBI Annotation Workshop

The International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2020.

The International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2020 was originally planned to take place in Bern, Switzerland, in March 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic put a spoke in the wheel of almost all conferences to be held in 2020. After moving the conference to 8-9 October 2020, we got hit by the second wave and finally decided at short notice to go fully online. On the other hand, the pandemic has made us even more aware of the importance of accelerating research in viral bioinformatics. Advances in bioinformatics have led to improved approaches to investigate viral infections and outbreaks. The International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2020 has attracted approximately 120 experts in virology and bioinformatics from all over the world to join the two-day virtual meeting. Despite concerns being raised that virtual meetings lack possibilities for face-to-face discussion, the participants from this small community created a highly interactive scientific environment, engaging in lively and inspiring discussions and suggesting new research directions and questions. The meeting featured five invited and twelve contributed talks, on the four main topics: (1) proteome and RNAome of RNA viruses, (2) viral metagenomics and ecology, (3) virus evolution and classification and (4) viral infections and immunology. Further, the meeting featured 20 oral poster presentations, all of which focused on specific areas of virus bioinformatics. This report summarizes the main research findings and highlights presented at the meeting

euHCVdb: the European hepatitis C virus database

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome shows remarkable sequence variability, leading to the classification of at least six major genotypes, numerous subtypes and a myriad of quasispecies within a given host. A database allowing researchers to investigate the genetic and structural variability of all available HCV sequences is an essential tool for studies on the molecular virology and pathogenesis of hepatitis C as well as drug design and vaccine development. We describe here the European Hepatitis C Virus Database (euHCVdb, ), a collection of computer-annotated sequences based on reference genomes. The annotations include genome mapping of sequences, use of recommended nomenclature, subtyping as well as three-dimensional (3D) molecular models of proteins. A WWW interface has been developed to facilitate database searches and the export of data for sequence and structure analyses. As part of an international collaborative effort with the US and Japanese databases, the European HCV Database (euHCVdb) is mainly dedicated to HCV protein sequences, 3D structures and functional analyses

Fifteen years SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics: life science databases, tools and support

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) was created in 1998 as an institution to foster excellence in bioinformatics. It is renowned worldwide for its databases and software tools, such as UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, PROSITE, SWISS-MODEL, STRING, etc, that are all accessible on ExPASy.org, SIB's Bioinformatics Resource Portal. This article provides an overview of the scientific and training resources SIB has consistently been offering to the life science community for more than 15 year