Fengfeng Zhou

SUMOsp: a web server for sumoylation site prediction

Systematic dissection of the sumoylation proteome is emerging as an appealing but challenging research topic because of the significant roles sumoylation plays in cellular dynamics and plasticity. Although several proteome-scale analyzes have been performed to delineate potential sumoylatable proteins, the bona fide sumoylation sites still remain to be identified. Previously, we carried out a genome-wide analysis of the SUMO substrates in human nucleus using the putative motif ψ-K-X-E and evolutionary conservation. However, a highly specific predictor for in silico prediction of sumoylation sites in any individual organism is still urgently needed to guide experimental design. In this work, we present a computational system SUMOsp—SUMOylation Sites Prediction, based on a manually curated dataset, integrating the results of two methods, GPS and MotifX, which were originally designed for phosphorylation site prediction. SUMOsp offers at least as good prediction performance as the only available method, SUMOplot, on a very large test set. We expect that the prediction results of SUMOsp combined with experimental verifications will propel our understanding of sumoylation mechanisms to a new level. SUMOsp has been implemented on a freely accessible web server at: .

CSS-Palm: palmitoylation site prediction with a clustering and scoring strategy (CSS)

UNLABELLED Palmitoylation is an important post-translational lipid modification of proteins. Unlike prenylation and myristoylation, palmitoylation is a reversible covalent modification, allowing for dynamic regulation of multiple complex cellular systems. However, in vivo or in vitro identification of palmitoylation sites is usually time-consuming and labor-intensive. So in silico predictions could help to narrow down the possible palmitoylation sites, which can be used to guide further experimental design. Previous studies suggested that there is no unique canonical motif for palmitoylation sites, so we hypothesize that the bona fide pattern might be compromised by heterogeneity of multiple structural determinants with different features. Based on this hypothesis, we partition the known palmitoylation sites into three clusters and score the similarity between the query peptide and the training ones based on BLOSUM62 matrix. We have implemented a computer program for palmitoylation site prediction, Clustering and Scoring Strategy for Palmitoylation Sites Prediction (CSS-Palm) system, and found that the programs prediction performance is encouraging with highly positive Jack-Knife validation results (sensitivity 82.16% and specificity 83.17% for cut-off score 2.6). Our analyses indicate that CSS-Palm could provide a powerful and effective tool to studies of palmitoylation sites. AVAILABILITY CSS-Palm is implemented in PHP/PERL+MySQL and can be freely accessed at http://bioinformatics.lcd-ustc.org/css_palm/ CONTACT yaoxb@ustc.edu.cn; xuyn@bmb.uga.edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bionformatics online.

Insights into plant biomass conversion from the genome of the anaerobic thermophilic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii DSM 6725

Caldicellulosiruptor bescii DSM 6725 utilizes various polysaccharides and grows efficiently on untreated high-lignin grasses and hardwood at an optimum temperature of ∼80°C. It is a promising anaerobic bacterium for studying high-temperature biomass conversion. Its genome contains 2666 protein-coding sequences organized into 1209 operons. Expression of 2196 genes (83%) was confirmed experimentally. At least 322 genes appear to have been obtained by lateral gene transfer (LGT). Putative functions were assigned to 364 conserved/hypothetical protein (C/HP) genes. The genome contains 171 and 88 genes related to carbohydrate transport and utilization, respectively. Growth on cellulose led to the up-regulation of 32 carbohydrate-active (CAZy), 61 sugar transport, 25 transcription factor and 234 C/HP genes. Some C/HPs were overproduced on cellulose or xylan, suggesting their involvement in polysaccharide conversion. A unique feature of the genome is enrichment with genes encoding multi-modular, multi-functional CAZy proteins organized into one large cluster, the products of which are proposed to act synergistically on different components of plant cell walls and to aid the ability of C. bescii to convert plant biomass. The high duplication of CAZy domains coupled with the ability to acquire foreign genes by LGT may have allowed the bacterium to rapidly adapt to changing plant biomass-rich environments.

MUST: A system for identification of miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements and applications to Anabaena variabilis and Haloquadratum walsbyi

Transposable elements (TE) are functionally important genetic elements that can move within a genome. Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) constitute a class of transposable elements that are usually small in size and have high numbers of conserved copies. Identifying all the MITEs in a genome could provide new insights about gene evolution and genome dynamics of the organism. We present a web-based MITE Uncovering SysTem (MUST) for prediction and analyses of MITEs at a genome level. MUST reliably found both the previously known and novel MITEs in the two bacterial genomes, Anabaena variabilis ATCC 29413 and Haloquadratum walsbyi DSM 16790. MUST is available at http://csbl1.bmb.uga.edu/ffzhou/MUST/ (the standalone version is available upon request). Supplementary data associated with this article are available in the online version or at: http://csbl1.bmb.uga.edu/ffzhou/MUST/supp/.

A genome-wide analysis of sumoylation-related biological processes and functions in human nucleus

Protein sumoylation is an important reversible post‐translational modification of proteins in the nucleus, and it orchestrates a variety of the cellular processes. Genome‐wide analysis of functional abundance and distribution of Small Ubiquitin‐related MOdifier (SUMO) substrates may shed a light on how sumoylation is involved in nuclear biological processes and functions. Two interesting questions about sumoylation have emerged: (1) how many SUMO substrates exist in mammalian proteomes, such as human and mouse, (2) and what are their functions and how are they involved in a variety of biological processes? To address these two questions,we present an in silico genome‐scale analysis for SUMO substrates in human. Based on the pattern recognition and phylogenetic conservation, we retrieved a list of 2683 potential SUMO substrates conserved in both human and mouse. Then, by functional enrichment analysis, we surveyed the over‐represented GO terms and functional domains of them against the whole human proteome. Besides the consistence between our analyses and in vivo or in vitro work, the in silico predicted candidates also point to several potential roles of sumoylation, e.g., perception of sound. These potential SUMO substrates in human are of great value for further in vivo or in vitro experimental analysis.

Insertion Sequences show diverse recent activities in Cyanobacteria and Archaea

BackgroundMobile genetic elements (MGEs) play an essential role in genome rearrangement and evolution, and are widely used as an important genetic tool.ResultsIn this article, we present genetic maps of recently active Insertion Sequence (IS) elements, the simplest form of MGEs, for all sequenced cyanobacteria and archaea, predicted based on the previously identified ~1,500 IS elements. Our predicted IS maps are consistent with the NCBI annotations of the IS elements. By linking the predicted IS elements to various characteristics of the organisms under study and the organisms living conditions, we found that (a) the activities of IS elements heavily depend on the environments where the host organisms live; (b) the number of recently active IS elements in a genome tends to increase with the genome size; (c) the flanking regions of the recently active IS elements are significantly enriched with genes encoding DNA binding factors, transporters and enzymes; and (d) IS movements show no tendency to disrupt operonic structures.ConclusionThis is the first genome-scale maps of IS elements with detailed structural information on the sequence level. These genetic maps of recently active IS elements and the several interesting observations would help to improve our understanding of how IS elements proliferate and how they are involved in the evolution of the host genomes.

De novo computational prediction of non-coding RNA genes in prokaryotic genomes

Motivation: The computational identification of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes represents one of the most important and challenging problems in computational biology. Existing methods for ncRNA gene prediction rely mostly on homology information, thus limiting their applications to ncRNA genes with known homologues. Results: We present a novel de novo prediction algorithm for ncRNA genes using features derived from the sequences and structures of known ncRNA genes in comparison to decoys. Using these features, we have trained a neural network-based classifier and have applied it to Escherichia coli and Sulfolobus solfataricus for genome-wide prediction of ncRNAs. Our method has an average prediction sensitivity and specificity of 68% and 70%, respectively, for identifying windows with potential for ncRNA genes in E.coli. By combining windows of different sizes and using positional filtering strategies, we predicted 601 candidate ncRNAs and recovered 41% of known ncRNAs in E.coli. We experimentally investigated six novel candidates using Northern blot analysis and found expression of three candidates: one represents a potential new ncRNA, one is associated with stable mRNA decay intermediates and one is a case of either a potential riboswitch or transcription attenuator involved in the regulation of cell division. In general, our approach enables the identification of both cis- and trans-acting ncRNAs in partially or completely sequenced microbial genomes without requiring homology or structural conservation. Availability: The source code and results are available at http://csbl.bmb.uga.edu/publications/materials/tran/. Contact: xyn@bmb.uga.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

RepPop: a database for repetitive elements in Populus trichocarpa.

BackgroundPopulus trichocarpa is the first tree genome to be completed, and its whole genome is currently being assembled. No functional annotation about the repetitive elements in the Populus trichocarpa genome is currently available.ResultsWe predicted 9,623 repetitive elements in the Populus trichocarpa genome, and assigned functions to 3,075 of them (31.95%). The 9,623 repetitive elements cover ~40% of the current (partially) assembled genome. Among the 9,623 repetitive elements, 668 have copies only in the contigs that have not been assigned to one of the 19 chromosome while the rest all have copies in the partially assembled chromosomes.ConclusionAll the predicted data are organized into an easy-to-use web-browsable database, RepPop. Various search capabilities are provided against the RepPop database. A Wiki system has been set up to facilitate functional annotation and curation of the repetitive elements by a community rather than just the database developer. The database RepPop will facilitate the assembling and functional characterization of the Populus trichocarpa genome.

cBar: a computer program to distinguish plasmid-derived from chromosome-derived sequence fragments in metagenomics data

Summary: Huge amount of metagenomic sequence data have been produced as a result of the rapidly increasing efforts worldwide in studying microbial communities as a whole. Most, if not all, sequenced metagenomes are complex mixtures of chromosomal and plasmid sequence fragments from multiple organisms, possibly from different kingdoms. Computational methods for prediction of genomic elements such as genes are significantly different for chromosomes and plasmids, hence raising the need for separation of chromosomal from plasmid sequences in a metagenome. We present a program for classification of a metagenome set into chromosomal and plasmid sequences, based on their distinguishing pentamer frequencies. On a large training set consisting of all the sequenced prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids, the program achieves ∼92% in classification accuracy. On a large set of simulated metagenomes with sequence lengths ranging from 300 bp to 100 kbp, the program has classification accuracy from 64.45% to 88.75%. On a large independent test set, the program achieves 88.29% classification accuracy. Availability: The program has been implemented as a standalone prediction program, cBar, which is available at http://csbl.bmb.uga.edu/∼ffzhou/cBar Contact: xyn@bmb.uga.edu Supplementary information:Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

A Recently Active Miniature Inverted-Repeat Transposable Element, Chunjie, Inserted Into an Operon Without Disturbing the Operon Structure in Geobacter uraniireducens Rf4

Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are short DNA transposons with terminal inverted repeat (TIR) signals and have been extensively studied in plants and other eukaryotes. But little is known about them in eubacteria. We identified a novel and recently active MITE, Chunjie, when studying the recent duplication of an operon consisting of ABC transporters and a phosphate uptake regulator in the chromosome of Geobacter uraniireducens Rf4. Chunjie resembles the other known MITEs in many aspects, e.g., having TIR signals and direct repeats, small in size, noncoding, able to fold into a stable secondary structure, and typically inserted into A + T-rich regions. At least one case of recent transposition was observed, i.e., the insertion of Chunjie into one copy of the aforementioned operon. As far as we know, this is the first report that the insertion of a MITE does not disrupt the operon structure.