BOL: Related items

Postdoc position at Centre Méditerranéen de Médecine Moléculaire - Nice - France

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 07:20:57 -0500

The research group of Dr. Michele Trabucchi at the Centre Méditerranéen de Médecine Moléculaire (C3M) at INSERM U1065 (University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France) is seeking candidates for a Postdoctoral fellow position to start on October 2014 for 3 years funded by FRM (Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale).
The broad interest of the lab is in understanding the expression control and function of small RNAs in activated myeloid cells (visit our webpage to check research interests and publications of the group : http://www.unice.fr/c3m/EN/Equipe10.html ).

The work will focus on the functional studies of small RNAs by using next-generation sequencing approaches.

Candidates should hold a Ph.D. degree and have strong background in bioinformatics.
The University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis provides a wide range of facilities and training essential for biomedical research.

Interested applicants should send a PDF with a cover letter stating research interests and qualifications, an updated CV, a summary of previous research experience and contact information for two references to Michele Trabucchi ( mtrabucchi@unice.fr )

Homepage: http://www.unice.fr/c3m/EN/Equipe10.html

Sorghum genome Sequenced!!

Jit — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 19:46:18 -0500

Sorghum, a staple food for 500 million resource-poor people in marginal environments and a model for other important crops, sorghum holds vital genetic resources as humanity confronts the nexus of food crisis and climate change. The recent research provides an unmatched resource to respond to these challenges by identifying a large high-quality SNP and indel data set in diverse sorghum genotypes.

In addition to providing a broad sample of the diversity in S. bicolor, the genotypes included in this study are known to display agronomically important traits including stay-green drought resistance, insect resistance, grain size and grain quality.

Find more at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130827/ncomms3320/full/ncomms3320.html

Ten recommendations for creating usable bioinformatics command line software

RAJESH DETROJA — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 10:06:26 -0500

Bioinformatics software varies greatly in quality. In terms of usability, the command line interface is the first experience a user will have of a tool. Unfortunately, this is often also the last time a tool will be used. Here I present ten recommendations for command line software author’s tools to follow, which I believe would greatly improve the uptake and usability of their products, waste less user’s time, and improve the quality of scientific analyses.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.gigasciencejournal.com/content/2/1/15?utm_content=buffer25ee0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Genetics, epigenetics and disease

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 11:32:55 -0500

Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Prize Lecture given by Professor Adrian Bird CBE FMedSci FRS on Tuesday 22 January 2013. Adrian Bird CBE FMedSci FRS is the Buchanan Chair of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. The human genome sequence has been available for more than a decade, but its significance is still not fully understood. While most human genes have been identified, there is much to learn about the DNA signals that control them. This lecture described an unusually short DNA sequence, just two base pairs long, CG, which occurs in several chemically different forms. Defects in signalling by CG are implicated in disease. For example, the autism spectrum disorder Rett syndrome is caused by loss of a protein that reads methylated CG and affects the activity of genes. The Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Prize Lecture is awarded for original contributions to medical and veterinary sciences published within ten years from the date of the award.

Alien Genome !!!

Jit — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 00:24:32 -0600

Genome sequencing, analysis and expression of Alien genome.

Note: This image/cartoon is create only for fun. It has nothing to do with any scientific findings.

Workshop On Molecular Modeling and Dynamics Simulation Analyses

Fri, 04 Jul 2014 13:38:13 -0500

Workshop On Molecular Modeling and Dynamics Simulation Analyses

August1-2, 2014

Organised By

Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility
Department of Biochemistry
University of Lucknow
Lucknow-226007

Course Contents

Molecular Modeling
Homology Modeling
Molecular Docking
Post-structural Analyses

Molecular Dynamics (MD)
Simulation
Linux Introduction
Gromacs Installation

MD Simulation of Protein ligand complex
Analyses of MD
Trajectories
Visualization of Dynamic
complexes

Important Dates

Registration Begins June 25, 2014
Registration Closes July 25, 2014

Brochure : www.lkouniv.ac.in/conference/Brochure_August,%202014.pdf

Genome Annotation Transfer Utility (GATU)

Jit — Mon, 29 May 2017 05:54:53 -0500

Genome Annotation Transfer Utility (GATU) was designed to facilitate quick, efficient annotation of similar genomes using genomes that have already been annotated. For example, whenever a new strain of SARS coronavirus is sequenced, it is possible, using GATU, to automatically annotate the new strain using a previously-annotated strain of SARS CoV. This saves researchers from tedious manual annotation of these sequences.

The program utilizes tBLASTn and BLASTn algorithms to map genes from the reference genome (the annotated strain) to the new sequence (the unannotated strain). The goal is to annotate the majority of the new genome’s genes in a single step. ORFs present in the target genome and absent from the reference genome are also identified; these ORFs can be further analyzed using BLAST, VGO and BBB. Afterwards, they can either be accepted for/rejected from annotation. GATU can handle multiple-exon genes as well as mature peptides. Although it was designed for use with viral genomes, GATU can also be used to help annotate larger genomes (ie. bacterial genomes).

The output is saved in GenBank, XML, or EMBL file format.

Address of the bookmark: https://virology.uvic.ca/help/tool-help/help-books/genome-annotation-transfer-utility-gatu-documentation/

Oxford Nanopore Sequencing, Hybrid Error Correction, and de novo Assembly of a Eukaryotic Genome

Jit — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 05:08:53 -0600

Monitoring the progress of DNA molecules through a membrane pore has been postulated as a method for sequencing DNA for several decades. Recently, a nanopore-based sequencing instrument, the Oxford Nanopore MinION, has become available that we used for sequencing the S. cerevisiae genome. To make use of these data, we developed a novel open-source hybrid error correction algorithm Nanocorr (https://github.com/jgurtowski/nanocorr) specifically for Oxford Nanopore reads, as existing packages were incapable of assembling the long read lengths (5-50kbp) at such high error rate (between ~5 and 40% error). With this new method we were able to perform a hybrid error correction of the nanopore reads using complementary MiSeq data and produce a de novo assembly that is highly contiguous and accurate: the contig N50 length is more than ten-times greater than an Illumina-only assembly (678kb versus 59.9kbp), and has greater than 99.88% consensus identity when compared to the reference. Furthermore, the assembly with the long nanopore reads presents a much more complete representation of the features of the genome and correctly assembles gene cassettes, rRNAs, transposable elements, and other genomic features that were almost entirely absent in the Illumina-only assembly.

Address of the bookmark: http://schatzlab.cshl.edu/data/nanocorr/

Breaking chromosomes to study cancer !!!

Jit — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 05:42:09 -0500

Chromosomes are present in every cell of our body and they contain the information the body needs to develop and function properly. This information is carried in genes that are arranged along the chromosomes. There are usually 46 chromosomes in every cell. These chromosomes come in pairs, one from our mother and one from our father. The chromosomes can be sorted into 23 pairs by looking at them down a microscope.

Most people who have a balanced translocation have the right amount of chromosome material but it has been rearranged in some way. This may happen if two chromosomes swap pieces (a reciprocal translocation). In other cases two whole chromosomes may become stuck together (a Robertsonian translocation). This page describes what happens when someone has a reciprocal translocation.

Reciprocal chromosomal translocations occur following double-strand breaks (DSBs) in DNA when a section of one chromosome is exchanged with that of another, non-homologous chromosome. These exchanges may produce a dysfunctional fusion gene that disrupts cell growth and survival pathways, such as the translocations seen in leukemia and childhood sarcomas.

Chromosomal translocations have been well studied in cancer cell lines which are associated with two types of cancer, acute myeloid leukemia and Ewing's sarcoma, but determining how they contribute to cancer development is complicated by additional mutations and altered gene expression profiles in these cultured cells. Now, Juan Carlos Ramirez, head of the Viral Vector Facility at the Fundacion Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) and his colleagues Raul Torres at CNIC and Sandra Rodriguez-Peralez at the Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO) in Madrid, Spain have used a new genome editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9, to induce chromosomal translocations for the first time in a human cell line and in primary cells. The study's authors conclude by stating that the use of this technology will allow for the clarification of how and why chromosomal translocation occurs, which without doubt will allow new anti-cancer therapeutic strategies to be tackled.

Using RNA-Guided Endonuclease (RGEN) technology or CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering technology, CNIO and CNIC researchers have shown that it is possible to obtain such chromosomal translocations. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is extremely simple to introduce a cut at the desired locus, easier to design, and cheaper than many other systems. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, Ramirez and his colleagues reproduced the translocations observed in Ewing’s Sarcoma (ES) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) patient cell lines in HEK293 cells and also generated the ES translocation in human mesenchymal stem cells and the AML translocation in umbilical cord blood cells.

By focusing on chromosomal translocation without the confounding characteristics of established cell lines, these new cells lines should help answer the fundamental question of what causes a cell to become cancerous. Ramirez and his team now look forward to modeling other chromosome translocations in a variety of cell types.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_translocation

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140603/ncomms4964/abs/ncomms4964.html

Genome assembly stats plotting

Jit — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 03:45:39 -0600

A de novo genome assembly can be summarised b

y a number of metrics, including:

Overall assembly length
Number of scaffolds/contigs
Length of longest scaffold/contig
Scaffold/contig N50 and N90Assembly base composition, in particular percentage GC and percentage Ns
CEGMA completeness
Scaffold/contig length/count distribution

assembly-stats supports two widely used presentations of these values, tabular and cumulative length plots, and introduces an additional circular plot that summarises most commonly used assembly metrics in a single visualisation. Each of these presentations is generated using javascript from a common (JSON) data structure, allowing toggling between alternative views, and each can be applied to a single or multiple assemblies to allow direct comparison of alternate assemblies.

Tabular presentation allows direct comparison of exact values between assemblies, the limitations of this approach lie in the necessary omission of distributions and the challenge of interpreting ratios of values that may vary by several orders of magnitude.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/rjchallis/assembly-stats