TY  - JOUR
A1  - Merget, Benjamin
A1  - Koetschan, Christian
A1  - Hackl, Thomas
A1  - Förster, Frank
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
A1  - Müller, Tobias
A1  - Schultz, Jörg
A1  - Wolf, Matthias
T1  - The ITS2 Database
JF  - Journal of Visual Expression
N2  - The internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) has been used as a phylogenetic marker for more than two decades. As ITS2 research mainly focused on the very variable ITS2 sequence, it confined this marker to low-level phylogenetics only. However, the combination of the ITS2 sequence and its highly conserved secondary structure improves the phylogenetic resolution1 and allows phylogenetic inference at multiple taxonomic ranks, including species delimitation.

The ITS2 Database presents an exhaustive dataset of internal transcribed spacer 2 sequences from NCBI GenBank accurately reannotated. Following an annotation by profile Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), the secondary structure of each sequence is predicted. First, it is tested whether a minimum energy based fold (direct fold) results in a correct, four helix conformation. If this is not the case, the structure is predicted by homology modeling. In homology modeling, an already known secondary structure is transferred to another ITS2 sequence, whose secondary structure was not able to fold correctly in a direct fold.

The ITS2 Database is not only a database for storage and retrieval of ITS2 sequence-structures. It also provides several tools to process your own ITS2 sequences, including annotation, structural prediction, motif detection and BLAST search on the combined sequence-structure information. Moreover, it integrates trimmed versions of 4SALE and ProfDistS for multiple sequence-structure alignment calculation and Neighbor Joining tree reconstruction. Together they form a coherent analysis pipeline from an initial set of sequences to a phylogeny based on sequence and secondary structure.

In a nutshell, this workbench simplifies first phylogenetic analyses to only a few mouse-clicks, while additionally providing tools and data for comprehensive large-scale analyses.
KW  - homology modeling
KW  - molecular systematics
KW  - internal transcribed spacer 2
KW  - alignment
KW  - genetics
KW  - secondary structure
KW  - ribosomal RNA
KW  - phylogenetic tree
KW  - phylogeny
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-124600
VL  - 61
IS  - e3806
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Förster, Frank
A1  - Beisser, Daniela
A1  - Grohme, Markus A.
A1  - Liang, Chunguang
A1  - Mali, Brahim
A1  - Siegl, Alexander Matthias
A1  - Engelmann, Julia C.
A1  - Shkumatov, Alexander V.
A1  - Schokraie, Elham
A1  - Müller, Tobias
A1  - Schnölzer, Martina
A1  - Schill, Ralph O.
A1  - Frohme, Marcus
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
T1  - Transcriptome analysis in tardigrade species reveals specific molecular pathways for stress adaptations
JF  - Bioinformatics and biology insights
N2  - Tardigrades have unique stress-adaptations that allow them to survive extremes of cold, heat, radiation and vacuum. To study this, encoded protein clusters and pathways from an ongoing transcriptome study on the tardigrade \(Milnesium\) \(tardigradum\) were analyzed using bioinformatics tools and compared to expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from \(Hypsibius\) \(dujardini\), revealing major pathways involved in resistance against extreme environmental conditions. ESTs are available on the Tardigrade Workbench along with software and databank updates. Our analysis reveals that RNA stability motifs for \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) are different from typical motifs known from higher animals. \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) and \(H.\) \(dujardini\) protein clusters and conserved domains imply metabolic storage pathways for glycogen, glycolipids and specific secondary metabolism as well as stress response pathways (including heat shock proteins, bmh2, and specific repair pathways). Redox-, DNA-, stress- and protein protection pathways complement specific repair capabilities to achieve the strong robustness of \(M.\) \(tardigradum\). These pathways are partly conserved in other animals and their manipulation could boost stress adaptation even in human cells. However, the unique combination of resistance and repair pathways make tardigrades and \(M.\) \(tardigradum\) in particular so highly stress resistant.
KW  - RNA
KW  - expressed sequence tag
KW  - cluster
KW  - protein familiy
KW  - adaption
KW  - tardigrada
KW  - transcriptome
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-123089
N1  - This is an open access article. Unrestricted non-commercial use is permitted provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 6
ER  -