Remote access to ACNUC nucleotide and protein sequence databases at PBIL

The ACNUC biological sequence database system provides powerful and fast query and extraction capabilities to a variety of nucleotide and protein sequence databases. The collection of ACNUC databases served by the Pôle Bio-Informatique Lyonnais includes the EMBL, GenBank, RefSeq and UniProt nucleotide and protein sequence databases and a series of other sequence databases that support comparative genomics analyses: HOVERGEN and HOGENOM containing families of homologous protein-coding genes from vertebrate and prokaryotic genomes, respectively; Ensembl and Genome Reviews for analyses of prokaryotic and of selected eukaryotic genomes. This report describes the main features of the ACNUC system and the access to ACNUC databases from any internet-connected computer. Such access was made possible by the definition of a remote ACNUC access protocol and the implementation of Application Programming Interfaces between the C, Python and R languages and this communication protocol. Two retrieval programs for ACNUC databases, Query_win, with a graphical user interface and raa_query, with a command line interface, are also described. Altogether, these bioinformatics tools provide users with either ready-to-use means of querying remote sequence databases through a variety of selection criteria, or a simple way to endow application programs with an extensive access to these databases. Remote access to ACNUC databases is open to all and fully documented (http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/databases/acnuc/acnuc.html).     

生物信息学的研究现状及其发展问题的探讨

结合生物信息学产生的历史条件,对生物信息学的定义进行了介绍;归纳总结了现代生物信息表述、采集、储存、传递、检索的表现形式-生物学数据库的分类与分布;着重介绍了生物信息学的主要研究内容和基本的分析方法,阐明了生物信息的分析和解读模式;强调了生物信息学与其他相关学科的相关性,提出了生物信息学发展的一些亟待解决的问题及其相应的解决方案。     

基因转录调控相关数据库集成系统及其应用

通过互联网访问的有关基因转录调控的数据库集成系统及其应用 ,包括调控区 (3’和 5’调控区、内显子和外显子调控区等 )、调控单元 (启动子 ,增强子 ,沉默子等 )和转录因子结合位点相关数据库及其数据库系统的性质、组成和功能。也介绍了这些数据库和系统的查询和搜索方法以及相关开发的程序工具。这些生物信息学资源对于从事生物信息学、分子生物学、遗传工程、基因功能、生物技术、代谢工程、药物设计、病理学和药理学研究的机构及人员在教学研究方面具一定的参考价值和帮助。     

世界水生植物科属检索系统的设计与建立

生物分类学涉及海量数据 ,而且随着研究的不断深入 ,各类相关信息还在以惊人的速度增长 ,这为利用传统方法和管理模式处理复杂的数据带来了很大困难。随着计算机技术的发展 ,其特有的高效性、稳定性等特点为大量生物信息的处理带来了革命性的变化。利用计算机技术管理生物信息不仅可以大幅度提高工作效率 ,而且对充分发挥其管理信息的作用具有重要的意义。人们已经在分类学方面进行了许多工作 ,也取得了不少成绩。例如英国的国立植被分类系统 ( Na-tional Vegetation Classification) ,它全面系统地总结了整个英国的植被类型 ,其支撑系统…     

70 years of permanent plot research in The Netherlands

Abstract. Within the framework of the Dutch ‘Network Ecological Monitoring’, a large set of new permanent plots has been established to monitor selected plant communities throughout The Netherlands for studying the effects of environmental changes on species composition of semi‐natural communities. This national programme will also make use of pre‐existing permanent plots. These plots reflect the long and comprehensive history of research using permanent plots in The Netherlands, where the first permanent plots were established in the early 1930s. To enhance the usefulness of preexisting permanent plots, a comprehensive permanent plot database was compiled. This database was derived from the Dutch National Vegetation Database, that was established for the recent vegetation classification of The Netherlands. This was supplemented with information from various organizations and a number of individual researchers. Currently, the permanent plot database contains ca. 6000 permanent plots. More than 2500 of these plots have been sampled at least 5, and ca. 1500 plots at least 10. Most of the plots are from grasslands, followed by forests and dune systems. This database not only provides insight into vegetation succession, fluctuations within plant communities over time, and the effects of changes of the environment on the vegetation but, indirectly, italso offers the possibility of studying the long‐term behaviour of individual plant species (e.g. establishment, competition, longevity). For the Network Ecological Monitoring a selection of these (historical) plots will be added to the new network of permanent plots in The Netherlands, thus supplying information of past vegetation conditions.     

Molecular phylogenetic study of the Iranians based on polymorphic markers

The application of polymorphic markers in construction of phylogenetic trees has been documented. Five polymorphic markers located in the PAH gene region including PAH-BglII, PAH-PvuII(A), PAH-EcoRI, PAH-MspI and PAH-STR were selected for analysis of phylogenetic relationships of the Iranians with 15 other populations of the world. The lowest genetic distance was observed between the Iranians and populations residing in Adygei (an ethnic group of the Russian Caucasus), Russia and Druze (a Middle Eastern group). However, East Asian populations including Han, Japanese and Cambodians, Khmer or the Oceanians (Melanesian, Nasioi) showed high genetic distance with the Iranians. The data suggested that the Iranians might have relatively close evolutionary history with the populations residing in Russia rather than East Asian populations. This study provided the first new molecular insight into the evolutionary history of the Iranian population.     

Extending the Horizon of Homology Detection with Coevolution-based Structure Prediction

Traditional sequence analysis algorithms fail to identify distant homologies when they lie beyond a detection horizon. In this review, we discuss how co-evolution-based contact and distance prediction methods are pushing back this homology detection horizon, thereby yielding new functional insights and experimentally testable hypotheses. Based on correlated substitutions, these methods divine three-dimensional constraints among amino acids in protein sequences that were previously devoid of all annotated domains and repeats. The new algorithms discern hidden structure in an otherwise featureless sequence landscape. Their revelatory impact promises to be as profound as the use, by archaeologists, of ground-penetrating radar to discern long-hidden, subterranean structures. As examples of this, we describe how triplicated structures reflecting longin domains in MON1A-like proteins, or UVR-like repeats in DISC1, emerge from their predicted contact and distance maps. These methods also help to resolve structures that do not conform to a “beads-on-a-string” model of protein domains. In one such example, we describe CFAP298 whose ubiquitin-like domain was previously challenging to perceive owing to a large sequence insertion within it. More generally, the new algorithms permit an easier appreciation of domain families and folds whose evolution involved structural insertion or rearrangement. As we exemplify with α1-antitrypsin, coevolution-based predicted contacts may also yield insights into protein dynamics and conformational change. This new combination of structure prediction (using innovative co-evolution based methods) and homology inference (using more traditional sequence analysis approaches) shows great promise for bringing into view a sea of evolutionary relationships that had hitherto lain far beyond the horizon of homology detection.     

WFS1 and non-syndromic low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss: A novel mutation in a Portuguese case

Low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss (LFSNHL) is an unusual type of HL in which frequencies at 2000 Hz and below are predominantly affected. Most of the families with LFSNHL carry missense mutations in WFS1 gene, coding for wolframin.