Xenbase: gene expression and improved integration.

Xenbase (www.xenbase.org), the model organism database for Xenopus laevis and X. (Silurana) tropicalis, is the principal centralized resource of genomic, development data and community information for Xenopus research. Recent improvements include the addition of the literature and interaction tabs to gene catalog pages. New content has been added including a section on gene expression patterns that incorporates image data from the literature, large scale screens and community submissions. Gene expression data are integrated into the gene catalog via an expression tab and is also searchable by multiple criteria using an expression search interface. The gene catalog has grown to contain over 15,000 genes. Collaboration with the European Xenopus Research Center (EXRC) has resulted in a stock center section with data on frog lines supplied by the EXRC. Numerous improvements have also been made to search and navigation. Xenbase is also the source of the Xenopus Anatomical Ontology and the clearinghouse for Xenopus gene nomenclature.

Xenbase: a Xenopus biology and genomics resource.

Xenbase (www.xenbase.org) is a model organism database integrating a diverse array of biological and genomic data on the frogs, Xenopus laevis and Xenopus (Silurana) tropicalis. Data is collected from other databases, high-throughput screens and the scientific literature and integrated into a number of database modules covering subjects such as community, literature, gene and genomic analysis. Gene pages are automatically assembled from data piped from the Entrez Gene, Gurdon Institute, JGI, Metazome, MGI, OMIM, PubMed, Unigene, Zfin, commercial suppliers and others. These data are then supplemented with in-house annotation. Xenbase has implemented the Gbrowse genome browser and also provides a BLAST service that allows users to specifically search either laevis or tropicalis DNA or protein targets. A table of Xenopus gene synonyms has been implemented and allows the genome, genes, publications and high-throughput gene expression data to be seamlessly integrated with other Xenopus data and to external database resources, making the wealth of developmental and functional data from the frog available to the broader research community.

Domain-based small molecule binding site annotation.

BACKGROUND: Accurate small molecule binding site information for a protein can facilitate studies in drug docking, drug discovery and function prediction, but small molecule binding site protein sequence annotation is sparse. The Small Molecule Interaction Database (SMID), a database of protein domain-small molecule interactions, was created using structural data from the Protein Data Bank (PDB). More importantly it provides a means to predict small molecule binding sites on proteins with a known or unknown structure and unlike prior approaches, removes large numbers of false positive hits arising from transitive alignment errors, non-biologically significant small molecules and crystallographic conditions that overpredict ion binding sites. DESCRIPTION: Using a set of co-crystallized protein-small molecule structures as a starting point, SMID interactions were generated by identifying protein domains that bind to small molecules, using NCBI's Reverse Position Specific BLAST (RPS-BLAST) algorithm. SMID records are available for viewing at http://smid.blueprint.org. The SMID-BLAST tool provides accurate transitive annotation of small-molecule binding sites for proteins not found in the PDB. Given a protein sequence, SMID-BLAST identifies domains using RPS-BLAST and then lists potential small molecule ligands based on SMID records, as well as their aligned binding sites. A heuristic ligand score is calculated based on E-value, ligand residue identity and domain entropy to assign a level of confidence to hits found. SMID-BLAST predictions were validated against a set of 793 experimental small molecule interactions from the PDB, of which 472 (60%) of predicted interactions identically matched the experimental small molecule and of these, 344 had greater than 80% of the binding site residues correctly identified. Further, we estimate that 45% of predictions which were not observed in the PDB validation set may be true positives. CONCLUSION: By focusing on protein domain-small molecule interactions, SMID is able to cluster similar interactions and detect subtle binding patterns that would not otherwise be obvious. Using SMID-BLAST, small molecule targets can be predicted for any protein sequence, with the only limitation being that the small molecule must exist in the PDB. Validation results and specific examples within illustrate that SMID-BLAST has a high degree of accuracy in terms of predicting both the small molecule ligand and binding site residue positions for a query protein.

A complete small molecule dataset from the protein data bank.

A complete set of 6300 small molecule ligands was extracted from the protein data bank, and deposited online in PubChem as data source 'SMID'. This set's major improvement over prior methods is the inclusion of cyclic polypeptides and branched polysaccharides, including an unambiguous nomenclature, in addition to normal monomeric ligands. Only the best available example of each ligand structure is retained, and an additional dataset is maintained containing co-ordinates for all examples of each structure. Attempts are made to correct ambiguous atomic elements and other common errors, and a perception algorithm was used to determine bond order and aromaticity when no other information was available.

The Xenbase literature curation process.

Xenbase (www.xenbase.org) is the model organism database for Xenopus tropicalis and Xenopus laevis, two frog species used as model systems for developmental and cell biology. Xenbase curation processes centre on associating papers with genes and extracting gene expression patterns. Papers from PubMed with the keyword 'Xenopus' are imported into Xenbase and split into two curation tracks. In the first track, papers are automatically associated with genes and anatomy terms, images and captions are semi-automatically imported and gene expression patterns found in those images are manually annotated using controlled vocabularies. In the second track, full text of the same papers are downloaded and indexed by a number of controlled vocabularies and made available to users via the Textpresso search engine and text mining tool.

Circadian cycles of gene expression in the coral, Acropora millepora.

BACKGROUND: Circadian rhythms regulate many physiological, behavioral and reproductive processes. These rhythms are often controlled by light, and daily cycles of solar illumination entrain many clock regulated processes. In scleractinian corals a number of different processes and behaviors are associated with specific periods of solar illumination or non-illumination--for example, skeletal deposition, feeding and both brooding and broadcast spawning. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have undertaken an analysis of diurnal expression of the whole transcriptome and more focused studies on a number of candidate circadian genes in the coral Acropora millepora using deep RNA sequencing and quantitative PCR. Many examples of diurnal cycles of RNA abundance were identified, some of which are light responsive and damped quickly under constant darkness, for example, cryptochrome 1 and timeless, but others that continue to cycle in a robust manner when kept in constant darkness, for example, clock, cryptochrome 2, cycle and eyes absent, indicating that their transcription is regulated by an endogenous clock entrained to the light-dark cycle. Many other biological processes that varied between day and night were also identified by a clustering analysis of gene ontology annotations. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Corals exhibit diurnal patterns of gene expression that may participate in the regulation of circadian biological processes. Rhythmic cycles of gene expression occur under constant darkness in both populations of coral larvae that lack zooxanthellae and in individual adult tissue containing zooxanthellae, indicating that transcription is under the control of a biological clock. In addition to genes potentially involved in regulating circadian processes, many other pathways were found to display diel cycles of transcription.

Projecting 2D gene expression data into 3D and 4D space.

Video games typically generate virtual 3D objects by texture mapping an image onto a 3D polygonal frame. The feeling of movement is then achieved by mathematically simulating camera movement relative to the polygonal frame. We have built customized scripts that adapt video game authoring software to texture mapping images of gene expression data onto b-spline based embryo models. This approach, known as UV mapping, associates two-dimensional (U and V) coordinates within images to the three dimensions (X, Y, and Z) of a b-spline model. B-spline model frameworks were built either from confocal data or de novo extracted from 2D images, once again using video game authoring approaches. This system was then used to build 3D models of 182 genes expressed in developing Xenopus embryos and to implement these in a web-accessible database. Models can be viewed via simple Internet browsers and utilize openGL hardware acceleration via a Shockwave plugin. Not only does this database display static data in a dynamic and scalable manner, the UV mapping system also serves as a method to align different images to a common framework, an approach that may make high-throughput automated comparisons of gene expression patterns possible. Finally, video game systems also have elegant methods for handling movement, allowing biomechanical algorithms to drive the animation of models. With further development, these biomechanical techniques offer practical methods for generating virtual embryos that recapitulate morphogenesis.