Simulating the Folding Pathway of RNA Secondary Structure Using the Modified Ant Colony Algorithm

A new method for simulating the folding pathway of RNA secondary structure using the modified ant colony algorithmis proposed.For a given RNA sequence,the set of all possible stems is obtained and the energy of each stem iscalculated and stored at the initial stage.Furthermore,a more realistic formula is used to compute the energy ofmulti-branch loop in the following iteration.Then a folding pathway is simulated,including such processes as constructionof the heuristic information,the rule of initializing the pheromone,the mechanism of choosing the initial andnext stem and the strategy of updating the pheromone between two different stems.Finally by testing RNA sequences withknown secondary structures from the public databases,we analyze the experimental data to select appropriate values forparameters.The measure indexes show that our procedure is more consistent with phylogenetically proven structures thansoftware RNAstructure sometimes and more effective than the standard Genetic Algorithm.

Grammar Model Based on Lexical Substring Extraction for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction

[Objective] To examine the grammar model based on lexical substring exac- tion for RNA secondary structure prediction. [Method] By introducing cloud model into stochastic grammar model, a machine learning algorithm suitable for the lexicalized stochastic grammar model was proposed. The word grid mode was used to extract and divide RNA sequence to acquire lexical substring, and the cloud classifier was used to search the maximum probability of each lemma which was marked as a certain sec- ondary structure type. Then, the lemma information was introduced into the training stochastic grammar process as prior information, realizing the prediction on the sec- ondary structure of RNA, and the method was tested by experiment. [Result] The experimental results showed that the prediction accuracy and searching speed of stochastic grammar cloud model were significantly improved from the prediction with simple stochastic grammar. [Conclusion] This study laid the foundation for the wide application of stochastic grammar model for RNA secondary structure prediction.

RNA secondary structures located in the interchromosomal region of human ACAT1 chimeric mRNA are required to produce the 56-kDa isoform

We have previously reported that the human ACAT1 gene produces a chimeric mRNA through the interchromosomal processing of two discontinuous RNAs transcribed from chromosomes 1 and 7. The chimeric mRNA uses AUG1397-1399 and GGC1274-1276 as translation initiation codons to produce normal 50-kDa ACAT1 and a novel enzymatically active 56-kDa isoform, respectively, with the latter being authentically present in human cells, including human monocyte- derived macrophages. In this work, we report that RNA secondary structures located in the vicinity of the GGC1274-1276 codon are required for production of the 56-kDa isoform. The effects of the three predicted stem-loops （nt 1255-1268, 1286-1342 and 1355-1384） were tested individually by transfecting expression plasmids into cells that contained the wild-type, deleted or mutant stem-loop sequences linked to a partial ACAT1 AUG open reading frame （ORF） or to the ORFs of other genes. The expression patterns were monitored by western blot analyses. We found that the upstream stem-loop1255-1268 from chromosome 7 and downstream stem-loop1286-1342 from chromosome 1 were needed for production of the 56-kDa isoform, whereas the last stem-loop135s-1384 from chromosome 1 was dispensable. The results of experi- ments using both monocistronic and bicistronic vectors with a stable hairpin showed that translation initiation from the GGC1274-1276 codon was mediated by an internal ribosome entry site （IRES）. Further experiments revealed that translation initiation from the GGC1274-1276 codon requires the upstream AU-constituted RNA secondary structure and the downstream GC-rich structure. This mechanistic work provides further support for the biological significance of the chimeric nature of the human ACAT1 transcript.

Prediction of RNA Secondary Structure Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

A novel method for the prediction of RNA secondary structure was proposed based on the particle swarm optimization（PSO）. PSO is known to be effective in solving many different types of optimization problems and known for being able to approximate the global optimal results in the solution space. We designed an efficient objective function according to the minimum free energy, the number of selected stems and the average length of selected stems. We calculated how many legal stems there were in the sequence, and selected some of them to obtain an optimal result using PSO in the right of the objective function. A method based on the improved particle swarm optimization（IPSO） was proposed to predict RNA secondary structure, which consisted of three stages. The first stage was applied to encoding the source sequences, and to exploring all the legal stems. Then, a set of encoded stems were created in order to prepare input data for the second stage. In the second stage, IPSO was responsible for structure selection. At last, the optimal result was obtained from the secondary structures selected via IPSO. Nine sequences from the comparative RNA website were selected for the evaluation of the proposed method. Compared with other six methods, the proposed method decreased the complexity and enhanced the sensitivity and specificity on the basis of the experiment results.

Role of RNA secondary structure in emergence of compartment specific hepatitis B virus immune escape variants

AIM To investigate the role of subgenotype specific RNA secondary structure in the compartment specific selection of hepatitis B virus(HBV)immune escape mutations.METHODS This study was based on the analysis of the specific observation of HBV subgenotype A1 in the serum/plasma,while subgenotype A2 with G145R mutation in the peripheral blood leukocytes(PBLs).Genetic variability found among the two subgenotypes was used for prediction and comparison of the full length pregenomic RNA(pgRNA)secondary structure and base pairings.RNA secondary structures were predicted for 37℃using the Vienna RNA fold server,using default parameters.Visualization and detailed analysis was done using RNA shapes program.RESULTS In this analysis,using similar algorithm and conditions,entirely different pgRNA secondary structures for subgenotype A1 and subgenotype A2 were predicted,suggesting different base pairing patterns within the two subgenotypes of genotype A,specifically,in the HBV genetic region encoding the major hydrophilic loop.We observed that for subgenotype A1 specific pgRNA,nucleotide 358U base paired with 1738A and nucleotide 587G base paired with 607C.However in sharp contrast,in subgenotype A2 specific pgRNA,nucleotide 358U was opposite to nucleotide 588G,while 587G was opposite to 359U,hence precluding correct base pairing and thereby lesser stability of the stem structure.When the nucleotides at 358U and 587G were replaced with 358C and 587A respectively(as observed specifically in the PBL associated A2 sequences),these nucleotides base paired correctly with 588G and 359U,respectively.CONCLUSION The results of this study show that compartment specific mutations are associated with HBV subgenotype specific alterations in base pairing of the pgRNA,leading to compartment specific selection and preponderance of specific HBV subgenotype with unique mutational pattern.

The Earliest Discovery of the Role of Magnesium Ions on Stabilizing the Tertiary Structure of the Transfer RNA and Its Biological Significance —A Short Memoir

In early of 1960s, I was a graduate student studying on tRNA biochemistry. In the course of the research, the magnesium ions stabilized the tertiary structure of tRNA, resulting in its resistance to enzymatic degradation was discovered independently. The experiment of deaminated (denatured) tRNA obtained from native tRNA was designed and conducted and further proved the validity of this finding. It was found that magnesium ions could stabilize the tertiary structure of the natrive tRNA but could not stabilize structure of the deaminated tRNA. In term of the methodology, this stabilization technique has been widely applied in sequencing analysis of RNA and has greatly promoted the progress in the study of primary structure of RNA. More importantly, the stabilization of the tertiary structure of RNA by magnesium ions plays a key role both in the processing of messenger RNAs and the ribozyme activity. After our first article in Chinese was published in 1963, a paper of Nishimura & Novelli came into our note. The received date of their paper was March 22 of 1963, only 4 days earlier than that of our first paper. Thus, we and Nishimura & Novelli made almost at the same time the earliest discovery of the role of magnesium ions on stabilizing the tertiary structure of the transfer RNA and thus resulted in resistance of tRNA degradation by enzymes. However, this discovery was not initially appreciated for a period of time but was finally “visualized” and proved by X-ray crystal structure of yeast phenylalanine tRNA, which has provided more accurate information on the geometry of the magnesium-binding sites in tRNA.

Improving RNA secondary structure prediction using direct coupling analysis

Secondary structures of RNAs are the basis of understanding their tertiary structures and functions and so their predictions are widely needed due to increasing discovery of noncoding RNAs.In the last decades,a lot of methods have been proposed to predict RNA secondary structures but their accuracies encountered bottleneck.Here we present a method for RNA secondary structure prediction using direct coupling analysis and a remove-and-expand algorithm that shows better performance than four existing popular multiple-sequence methods.We further show that the results can also be used to improve the prediction accuracy of the single-sequence methods.

IMPROVED METHOD FOR RNA SECONDARY STRUCTURE PREDICTION'

A simple stepwise folding process has been developed to simulate RNA secondary structure formation.Modifications for the energy parameters of various loops were included in the program.Five possible types of pseudoknots including the well known H-type pseudoknot were permitted to occur if reasonable.We have applied this approach to e number of RNA sequences.The prediction accuracies we obtained were higher than those in published papers.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF A SPECIFIC CHIP FOR RNA SECONDARY STRUCTURE PREDICTION

The architecture of a BioAccel (internal code) chip for RNA secondary structure prediction is described in the letter. The system is based on a BioBus (internal code), whose distinguishing features are: Two separated control and data channels, and a slave-associated arbitration scheme. Two reference systems based on the AMBA AHB bus and Coreconnect bus are introduced to evaluate the performance of the system. The simulation results are attractive. The average communication bandwidth of the chip is increased at severalfold, and the read and write latencies are reduced about 40 percent.

Minimal Secondary Structure Formation on mRNAs with a Shine-Dalgarno Sequence for Chromosomal Genes in <i>Rhodobacter sphaeroides</i>

The Shine-Dalgarno (SD) sequence, when present, is known to promote translation initiation in a bacterial cell. However, the thermodynamic stability of the messenger RNA (mRNA) through its secondary structures has an inhibitory effect on the efficiency of translation. This poses the question of whether bacterial mRNAs with SD have low secondary structure formation or not. About 3500 protein-coding genes in Rhodobacter sphaeroides were analyzed and a sliding window analysis of the last 100 nucleotides of the 5’ UTR and the first 100 nucleotides of ORFs was performed using RNAfold, a software for RNA secondary structure analysis. It was shown that mRNAs with SD are less stable than those without SD for genes located on the primary chromosome, but not for the plasmid encoded genes. Furthermore, mRNA stability is similar for genes within each chromosome except those encoded by the accessory chromosome (second chromosome). Results highlight the possible contribution of other factors like replicon-specific nucleotide composition (GC content), codon bias, and protein stability in determining the efficiency of translation initiation in both SD-dependent and SD-independent translation systems.

RNA structure prediction:Progress and perspective

Many recent exciting discoveries have revealed the versatility of RNAs and their importance in a variety of cellular functions which are strongly coupled to RNA structures. To understand the functions of RNAs, some structure prediction models have been developed in recent years. In this review, the progress in computational models for RNA structure prediction is introduced and the distinguishing features of many outstanding algorithms are discussed, emphasizing three- dimensional （3D） structure prediction. A promising coarse-grained model for predicting RNA 3D structure, stability and salt effect is also introduced briefly. Finally, we discuss the major challenges in the RNA 3D structure modeling.

基于多特征融合的细胞特异性lncRNA的亚细胞定位预测

长链非编码RNA(long non-coding RNA,lncRNA)在细胞生物学过程和疾病发展中扮演着关键性角色。由于lncRNA的亚细胞定位和其生物学功能密切相关,因此确定lncRNA的亚细胞定位具有重要意义。目前已有一些基于机器学习的方法来识别lncRNA的亚细胞位置,但在识别人类lncRNA的细胞特异性定位方面的相关工作仍然有限。该模型对人类细胞系lncRNA亚细胞定位问题进行了研究,提取了k-mer、CKSNAP、SRS和TSS特征信息,并对各类特征信息进行了融合,基于XGBoost和LightGBM结合的算法来预测人类细胞系lncRNA的亚细胞位置,并通过10倍交叉检验对模型进行了评估。结果表明,该模型预测人类细胞系lncRNA亚细胞定位的方法与现有的预测方法相比,预测成功率均有一定改进,其基准数据集的AUROC值最高达到92.26%。

Heterogeneity and Secondary Structure Analysis of 3' Untranslated Region in Classical Swine Fever Viruses

The attenuated vaccine strains of CSFV have a 12-nucleotides （nt） insertion in the 3＇-UTR of genome as compared to that of CSFV virulent strains. In this study, we found a distinct heterogeneity in the 3＇-UTR of attenuated Thiverval and HCLV strains. The longest 3＇-UTR of Thiverval strain was 259 base pairs （bp） with a 32-nt insertion, the shortest 3＇-UTR had only 233 bp with a 6-nt insertion. The longest 3＇-UTR of HCLV strain was 244 bp with a 17-nt insertion and the shortest 3＇ UTR was 235 bp with a 8-nt insertion. Compared with the published sequences of 3＇-UTR of vaccine and virulent strains, the 3＇-UTR of CSFV vaccine strains have two variable regions where insertion among the different vaccine strains were frequently found. The first is located between the second conservative TALk codon and the start of T-rich region where we found the variable length insertion in the same vaccine strain Thiveral or HCLV and the second is located between the end of T-rich region and the front of GAA eodon, however, a 4-nt deletion was found in this region in the virulent Shimen strain. These two regions may represent the ＂hot spot＂ for mutation. Modeling the secondary structures of the 3＇-UTR suggests that the T-rich insertion could result in the change of structure and free energy, thus affecting the stability of the 3＇-UTR structure. These findings will help to understand the mechanism of attenuated vaccines and improve vaccine safety, stability, and efficacy.

12种石鲈科鱼类线粒体16S rRNA基因的部分序列分析

分析了5属12种石鲈科鱼类的线粒体16S rRNA基因部分序列特征,并参照RNA二级结构模型区分配对区和非配对区。结果表明,配对区对G有偏好(33.5%),非配对区对A有偏好(38.5%);与配对区相比,非配对区存在更多的变异和系统发育信息。从序列的Jukes-Cantor遗传距离结果看,石鲈科胡椒鲷属Plectorhynchus、矶鲈属Parapristipoma、石鲈属Hapalogenys、髭鲷属Pomadasys、Haemulon属5个属属间的差异水平都接近或超过了其与外类群科间的差异水平。从构建的ME系统发育树结果看,石鲈科鱼类分成二大分支,未能形成单一类群。在亲缘关系上,胡椒鲷属和矶鲈属较近,石鲈属和Haemulon属较近,髭鲷属与其它4个属较远,髭鲷属在鲈亚目中的分类地位可能应提高到科的水平。初步确定研究中选用的16S rRNA基因片段基本适用于石鲈科属间和属内种间关系的研究。

RNA二级结构在微生物系统发育分析上的应用

RNA二级结构用于微生物分类和系统发育分析在近年来逐渐受到注意并发展起来。文章就此方面的发展做了简要综述,其中对在系统发育分析上的应用部分作了较重点介绍。

针对H1N1病毒的多特征siRNA设计

针对甲型流感病毒H1N1基因,从RNAi的角度出发,采用多特征融合的方法,进行siRNA预测。对2009年的46株病毒序列的PA片段进行分析,从经过序列分析所获得的众多靶序列中,采用结构分析手段对靶序列进行筛选,获得较易干扰的靶序列及设计出相应的siRNA。2009年爆发的H1N1病毒,序列保守性高,靶序列一致性高,结构保守性高。该方法可以有效选择可能的靶序列,并在此基础上进一步筛选,以获得少量较易干扰的靶序列,该方法为复杂序列siRNA的设计提供了新思路,对siRNA的优化设计有指导意义,有助于利用RNAi进行H1N1治疗的后续研究。

RNA二级结构预测方法综述

RNA二级结构预测是计算分子生物学中的一个重要领域.本文介绍了RNA二级结构的预测方法,包括该问题的数学模型、主要算法思想以及每种算法对应的软件.在tRNA和RNase P RNA数据库中随机选取了几组样例对目前主要的7种软件进行测试,同时对每种软件的优缺点进行了详细比较.实验证明,当存在同源序列时,Pfold的效果优于其它软件.最后,在总结分析现有算法的基础上探讨了该领域进一步的研究方向.

基于离散Hopfield网络求解极大独立集的茎区选择算法以及在RNA二级结构预测中的应用

提出了一种利用离散Hopfield网络求解图论极大独立集的启发式算法,并将其应用于RNA二级结构的茎区选择和预测当中.算法通过映射RNA序列的茎区为无向图中的节点,将预测RNA二级结构的问题转化为求解图的极大独立集的问题.定义了合理的能量变化函数,利用离散Hopfield网络进行迭代,以获得能量最优的预测结构.文中将算法与传统的最大匹配数算法以及最小自由能算法在运行时间上进行比较,并且选择特定的序列在茎区和碱基对水平上进行精度测试,结果证明该算法在效率和精度上具有一定的优势.算法的时间复杂性为max{O(n2),O(N2)},空间复杂度为O(N2),其中n为RNA序列长度,N为RNA的茎区段个数.

日新月异的RNA二级结构预测

对RNA结构与功能的研究是当今生物信息学一个非常重要的课题 ,对RNA自身功能的认识在当前已经得到了极大的拓展和深入 ,而研究它更可以作为研究蛋白质结构与功能以及DNA序列中基因信息的突破口 .本文系统介绍了从上世纪 70年代以来发展至今的各类RNA二级结构预测算法 ,从对RNA结构预测方法的追溯和跟踪 ,对当今RNA研究的进展和形势作了一个总结 ,并预测了这一领域未来的研究发展趋势 .