Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most non-coding RNA families exert their function by means of a conserved, common secondary structure. The Rfam data base contains more than five hundred structurally annotated RNA families. Unfortunately, searching for new family me...

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Main Authors: Reeder Jens, Janssen Stefan, Giegerich Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2008-02-01
Series:BMC Bioinformatics
Online Access:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/9/131
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author Reeder Jens
Janssen Stefan
Giegerich Robert
author_facet Reeder Jens
Janssen Stefan
Giegerich Robert
author_sort Reeder Jens
collection DOAJ
description <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most non-coding RNA families exert their function by means of a conserved, common secondary structure. The Rfam data base contains more than five hundred structurally annotated RNA families. Unfortunately, searching for new family members using covariance models (CMs) is very time consuming. Filtering approaches that use the sequence conservation to reduce the number of CM searches, are fast, but it is unknown to which sacrifice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a new filtering approach, which exploits the family specific secondary structure and significantly reduces the number of CM searches. The filter eliminates approximately 85% of the queries and discards only 2.6% true positives when evaluating Rfam against itself. First results also capture previously undetected non-coding RNAs in a recent human <it>RNAz </it>screen.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The <b>RNA s</b>hape <b>i</b>ndex <b>f</b>ilter (<it>RNAsifter</it>) is based on the following rationale: An RNA family is characterised by structure, much more succinctly than by sequence content. Structures of individual family members, which naturally have different length and sequence composition, may exhibit structural variation in detail, but overall, they have a common shape in a more abstract sense. Given a fixed release of the Rfam data base, we can compute these abstract shapes for all families. This is called a shape index. If a query sequence belongs to a certain family, it must be able to fold into the family shape with reasonable free energy. Therefore, rather than matching the query against all families in the data base, we can first (and quickly) compute its feasible shape(s), and use the shape index to access only those families where a good match is possible due to a common shape with the query.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-8b52df046775401e9a86976f65ff20ab2022-12-22T02:41:05ZengBMCBMC Bioinformatics1471-21052008-02-019113110.1186/1471-2105-9-131Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databasesReeder JensJanssen StefanGiegerich Robert<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most non-coding RNA families exert their function by means of a conserved, common secondary structure. The Rfam data base contains more than five hundred structurally annotated RNA families. Unfortunately, searching for new family members using covariance models (CMs) is very time consuming. Filtering approaches that use the sequence conservation to reduce the number of CM searches, are fast, but it is unknown to which sacrifice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a new filtering approach, which exploits the family specific secondary structure and significantly reduces the number of CM searches. The filter eliminates approximately 85% of the queries and discards only 2.6% true positives when evaluating Rfam against itself. First results also capture previously undetected non-coding RNAs in a recent human <it>RNAz </it>screen.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The <b>RNA s</b>hape <b>i</b>ndex <b>f</b>ilter (<it>RNAsifter</it>) is based on the following rationale: An RNA family is characterised by structure, much more succinctly than by sequence content. Structures of individual family members, which naturally have different length and sequence composition, may exhibit structural variation in detail, but overall, they have a common shape in a more abstract sense. Given a fixed release of the Rfam data base, we can compute these abstract shapes for all families. This is called a shape index. If a query sequence belongs to a certain family, it must be able to fold into the family shape with reasonable free energy. Therefore, rather than matching the query against all families in the data base, we can first (and quickly) compute its feasible shape(s), and use the shape index to access only those families where a good match is possible due to a common shape with the query.</p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/9/131
spellingShingle Reeder Jens
Janssen Stefan
Giegerich Robert
Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
BMC Bioinformatics
title Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
title_full Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
title_fullStr Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
title_full_unstemmed Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
title_short Shape based indexing for faster search of RNA family databases
title_sort shape based indexing for faster search of rna family databases
url http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/9/131
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AT janssenstefan shapebasedindexingforfastersearchofrnafamilydatabases
AT giegerichrobert shapebasedindexingforfastersearchofrnafamilydatabases