Automated Genomewide Annotation of Non-coding RNAs

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Manja Marz
• Subject Area: Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 184034557

Within the last years more than 1,200 genomes from all domains of life have been sequenced and analyzed to obtain essential insights into the evolution of life and etiology and therapy of diseases. Non-(protein-)coding RNAs (ncRNAs) play a central and regulatory role, which has been broadly recognized since the human ENCODE project as well as several other genome projects. In contrast to protein-coding parts of the DNA, the annotation of ncRNAs is an outstanding challenge owing to the structural selection pressure of its transcripts.During this project an automized genomewide annotation program of ncRNAs will be developed. For each ncRNA class a module with specific biological properties will be constructed, which is, on the one hand, executable within an overall program without any a priori knowledge and is, on the other hand, modifiable later on for special requirements. The different ncRNA classes, and therewith associated identification problems, as well as the methodological approaches will be outlined here. The very few existing ncRNA identification programs will be integrated to solve the identification problem. A webserver will facilitate the handling of the program for non-computer scientists.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants