Bioinformatics resource manager v2.3: an integrated software environment for systems biology with microRNA and cross-species analysis tools

BMC Bioinformatics

Susan C Tilton²  Tamara L Tal⁴  Sheena M Scroggins²  Jill A Franzosa¹  Elena S Peterson³  Robert L Tanguay¹  Katrina M Waters² 

[1] Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

[2] Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

[3] Scientific Data Management, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

[4] Current address: Integrated Systems Toxicology Division, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

关键词: Zebrafish;    Bioinformatics;    MicroRNA;    Genomics;    Systems biology;   

Others  :  1088059
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2105-13-311

 received in 2012-07-06, accepted in 2012-10-27,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that direct post-transcriptional regulation of protein coding genes. Recent studies have shown miRNAs are important for controlling many biological processes, including nervous system development, and are highly conserved across species. Given their importance, computational tools are necessary for analysis, interpretation and integration of high-throughput (HTP) miRNA data in an increasing number of model species. The Bioinformatics Resource Manager (BRM) v2.3 is a software environment for data management, mining, integration and functional annotation of HTP biological data. In this study, we report recent updates to BRM for miRNA data analysis and cross-species comparisons across datasets.

Results

BRM v2.3 has the capability to query predicted miRNA targets from multiple databases, retrieve potential regulatory miRNAs for known genes, integrate experimentally derived miRNA and mRNA datasets, perform ortholog mapping across species, and retrieve annotation and cross-reference identifiers for an expanded number of species. Here we use BRM to show that developmental exposure of zebrafish to 30 uM nicotine from 6–48 hours post fertilization (hpf) results in behavioral hyperactivity in larval zebrafish and alteration of putative miRNA gene targets in whole embryos at developmental stages that encompass early neurogenesis. We show typical workflows for using BRM to integrate experimental zebrafish miRNA and mRNA microarray datasets with example retrievals for zebrafish, including pathway annotation and mapping to human ortholog. Functional analysis of differentially regulated (p<0.05) gene targets in BRM indicates that nicotine exposure disrupts genes involved in neurogenesis, possibly through misregulation of nicotine-sensitive miRNAs.

Conclusions

BRM provides the ability to mine complex data for identification of candidate miRNAs or pathways that drive phenotypic outcome and, therefore, is a useful hypothesis generation tool for systems biology. The miRNA workflow in BRM allows for efficient processing of multiple miRNA and mRNA datasets in a single software environment with the added capability to interact with public data sources and visual analytic tools for HTP data analysis at a systems level. BRM is developed using Java™ and other open-source technologies for free distribution (http://www.sysbio.org/dataresources/brm.stm webcite).

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Tilton et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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