CRMarker: A manually curated comprehensive resource of cancer RNA markers.

Biomolecular markers have extremely important value for cancer research and treatment. However, as far as we know, there are still no searchable and predictable resources focusing on multiple classes of RNA molecular markers in cancers. Herein, we developed CRMarker, a manually curated comprehensive repository of cancer RNA markers. In the current release, CRMarker v1.1 consists of 5489 "known" cancer RNA markers based on 8756 valid publications in PubMed, including 2878 mRNAs (genes), 1314 miRNAs, 1097 lncRNAs and 200 circRNAs, and involving two functional molecules (diagnosis and prognosis), 21 organisms and 154 cancers. The search results provided by the database are comprehensive, including 11 items such as RNA molecule expression and risk level, type of tissue or sample, cancer subtype, reference type, etc. Moreover, CRMarker also provides more than 18,000 potential cancer RNA markers, which are predicted based on "guilt-by-association" analysis of the above-mentioned "known" RNA markers and three molecular interaction networks, and survival analysis of 18 gene expression data sets with survival data. CRMarker v1.1 has a friendly interface and is freely available online at http://crmarker.hnnu.edu.cn/. We aim to build a comprehensive platform that is convenient for cancer researchers and clinicians to inquire and retrieve.

A marine algicidal Thalassospira and its active substance against the harmful algal bloom species Karenia mikimotoi.

The aim of the present study was to obtain a marine bacterium active against Karenia mikimotoi from the East China Sea and to characterize its extracellular algicidal substances. Using preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (prep-HPLC) and electrospray ionization/quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometer coupled with a high-performance liquid chromatography (LC/MS-Q-TOF) system, we purified the alga-lysing substance produced by strain ZR-2 and determined its molecular structure. Based on morphology and l6S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequence analysis, the ZR-2 strain was highly homologous to Thalassospira species. Algicidal activity against K. mikimotoi was detected in the cell-free filtrate but not in bacterial cells. The alga-lysing substance produced by ZR-2 was ethanol-soluble and thermostable, with a retention time of 6.3 min and a measured elemental composition of C7H5O2 ([M-H](-) ion at m/z 121.0295). The alga-lysing substance produced by ZR-2 was determined to be benzoic acid. Compared with the negative control, both purified ZR-2 bacteria-free filtrate and standard benzoic acid promoted K. mikimotoi cell disruption and induced K. mikimotoi cell content leakage. Our study is the first to report benzoic acid activity against K. mikimotoi as well as production of benzoic acid by a Thalassospira species.