To fully leverage these opportunities, bioinformaticians require specialized tools and databases. This blog highlights essential resources for mycology research, focusing on databases, tools, and platforms tailored for fungal biology.

1. Fungal Databases

1.1. MycoCosm

Website: MycoCosm
Developed by the DOE Joint Genome Institute, MycoCosm is a comprehensive portal for fungal genomics. It offers genomic and transcriptomic data for a wide range of fungi, including saprobes, pathogens, and symbionts.

• Key Features: Genome browsers, comparative genomics tools, and functional annotations.
• Best For: Large-scale studies on fungal evolution and ecology.

1.2. FungiDB

Website: FungiDB
FungiDB is an integrated genomic resource for fungal pathogens and non-pathogens. It provides access to genome sequences, transcriptomic data, and functional annotations.

• Key Features: Advanced search options, BLAST, and pathway analysis tools.
• Best For: Studying fungal pathogenesis and host-pathogen interactions.

1.3. Index Fungorum

Website: Index Fungorum
This nomenclatural database provides information on the scientific names of fungi. It’s an essential resource for taxonomists and researchers focused on fungal biodiversity.

• Key Features: Taxonomic hierarchy and synonymy tracking.
• Best For: Identifying and classifying fungal species.

1.4. UNITE

Website: UNITE
UNITE is a specialized database for fungal ITS (Internal Transcribed Spacer) sequences, often used in fungal identification and phylogenetics.

• Key Features: Curated reference datasets and community annotations.
• Best For: Environmental mycology and microbial ecology studies.

2. Analytical Tools

2.1. Funannotate

Repository: GitHub - Funannotate
Funannotate is a genome annotation tool designed for fungi. It supports tasks like gene prediction, functional annotation, and orthology analysis.

• Best For: Annotating newly sequenced fungal genomes.

2.2. BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs)

Website: BUSCO
BUSCO evaluates genome assembly and annotation completeness using orthologs. It includes a fungal-specific dataset.

• Best For: Assessing the quality of fungal genome assemblies.

2.3. Pathogen-Host Interactions Database (PHI-base)

Website: PHI-base
PHI-base is a manually curated resource containing information on pathogen-host interactions, including fungal pathogens.

• Best For: Exploring virulence factors and host-pathogen relationships.

3. Visualization Platforms

3.1. Cytoscape

Website: Cytoscape
A powerful tool for visualizing molecular interaction networks, Cytoscape can be used to study protein-protein interactions, gene networks, and metabolic pathways in fungi.

• Best For: Network biology and functional genomics.

3.2. iTOL (Interactive Tree of Life)

Website: iTOL
iTOL is an interactive tool for visualizing phylogenetic trees.

• Best For: Displaying fungal phylogenies and comparing evolutionary relationships.

4. Community Resources

4.1. Mycological Society of America (MSA)

Website: MSA
The MSA promotes fungal research and provides access to resources, conferences, and publications.

• Best For: Networking with fungal researchers and accessing recent studies.

4.2. OpenFungi

Website: OpenFungi
OpenFungi is an open-source initiative providing fungal genomic and transcriptomic datasets for research and education.

• Best For: Sharing and accessing public fungal datasets.

5. Genomics Workflows

5.1. Galaxy

Website: Galaxy Project
Galaxy offers a web-based platform for reproducible bioinformatics workflows, including tools for fungal genome and transcriptome analysis.

• Best For: User-friendly analysis pipelines without requiring coding skills.

5.2. Snakemake

Repository: Snakemake
A flexible pipeline management tool that supports fungal data processing and analysis.

• Best For: Custom workflows for large-scale fungal datasets.

Conclusion

Fungal research is a rapidly growing field with vast implications for medicine, agriculture, and industry. For bioinformaticians, the availability of specialized resources—databases, tools, and community platforms—opens doors to innovative discoveries. Whether you are investigating fungal genomics, studying host-pathogen interactions, or exploring fungal biodiversity, the resources outlined above will empower your research journey.

Dive into these resources and help unravel the mysteries of the fungal kingdom!

Source: Life technologies

Address of the bookmark: http://www.lifetechnologies.com/global/en/home/communities-social/blog/blogs/sequencing-solutions-to-world-health.html?cid=social_blogseries_20130829_11098264

More at http://bioinfo.vanderbilt.edu/zhanglab/

Following are the useful links:

Single Cell RNAseq data analysis Tutorial

A step-by-step workflow for low-level analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data

A step-by-step workflow for low-level analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data with Bioconductor

SCell: single-cell RNA-seq analysis software

https://github.com/diazlab/SCell

Beta-Poisson model for single-cell RNA-seq data analyses

https://github.com/nghiavtr/BPSC

Sincera: A Computational Pipeline for Single Cell RNA-Seq Profiling Analysis

https://research.cchmc.org/pbge/sincera.html

SC3 – consensus clustering of single-cell RNA-Seq data

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/02/036558

Citrus: A toolkit for single cell sequencing analysis

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/14/045070

Single-Cell Resolution of Temporal Gene Expression during Heart Development

http://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807(16)30682-7

Scalable latent-factor models applied to single-cell RNA-seq data separate biological drivers from confounding effects

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/15/087775

Single cell transcriptomes identify human islet cell signatures and reveal cell-type-specific expression changes in type 2 diabetes

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2016/11/18/gr.212720.116.abstract

SCODE: An efficient regulatory network inference algorithm from single-cell RNA-Seq during differentiation

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/21/088856

SCOUP is a probabilistic model to analyze single-cell expression data during differentiation

https://github.com/hmatsu1226/SCOUP

scLVM is a modelling framework for single-cell RNA-seq data

https://github.com/PMBio/scLVM

Selective Locally linear Inference of Cellular Expression Relationships (SLICER) algorithm for inferring cell trajectories

https://github.com/jw156605/SLICER

SinQC: A Method and Tool to Control Single-cell RNA-seq Data Quality

http://www.morgridge.net/SinQC.html

TSCAN: Pseudo-time reconstruction and evaluation in single-cell RNA-seq analysis

https://github.com/zji90/TSCAN

Visualization and cellular hierarchy inference of single-cell data using SPADE

http://www.nature.com/nprot/journal/v11/n7/full/nprot.2016.066.html

OEFinder: Identify ordering effect genes in single cell RNA-seq data

https://github.com/lengning/OEFinder

Address of the bookmark: http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/2016-sourmash.html

100K Genome Project, aims to sequence the genomes of 100,000 bacterial and viral genomes.

http://100kgenome.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/

H. contortus is a member of the superfamily trichostrongyloidea (Strongylida) which contains most of the economically important parasitic nematodes of grazing livestock. These parasites cost the global livestock industry billions of dollars per annum in lost production and drug costs. A common type of clover may be a preventative or palliative for the disease. However, some particular breeds of sheep, such as the Gulf Coast Native from the Southern United States, have been shown to have developed special resistance to H. contortus.

Getting the full genome can help to tackle the problem and understand the resistance mechanism with an ease. Moreover, the genome could now provide a comprehensive understanding of how treatments against parasitic worms work and point to further new treatments and vaccines. By comparing the genome of the barber's pole worm with those of worms that have acquired drug resistance, researchers expect to reveal information about how and why resistance has occurred. Till now, researchers have uncovered essential information in the fight against drug resistance in worms.

Reference:

http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/28/08/2013/140758/researchers-close-in-on-worm-resistance-in-sheep.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130828103351.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fplants_animals+(ScienceDaily%3A+Plants+%26+Animals+News)

Image source: Wikipedia

We are also interested in the large-scale integration of genomic, expression, methylation and proteomic data sets, as well as the application of whole genome sequence analysis in clinical diagnostics.

More at http://millslab.ccmb.med.umich.edu/index.html

A survey of best practices for RNA-seq data analysis

RNA-seq workflow: gene-level exploratory analysis and DE

RNAseq analysis notes from Tommy Tang

Analysis of RNA ‐ Seq Data

RNA-seq analysis is easy as 1-2-3 with limma, Glimma and edgeR

Differential gene and transcript expression analysis of RNA-seq experiments with TopHat and Cufflinks.

EBI RNA-Seq exercise

An open RNA-Seq data analysis pipeline tutorial with an example

RNA-Seq Analysis Workflow

Transcript-level expression analysis of RNA-seq experiments