A Novel Method for Assessing the Statistical Significance of RNA-RNA Interactions Between Two Long RNAs

Fast RNA-RNA Interaction Prediction Methods for Interaction Analysis of Transcriptome-Scale Large Datasets

The computational prediction of RNA-RNA interactions has long been studied in RNA informatics. Most of the existing approaches focused on the interaction prediction of short RNAs in small datasets. However, in recent years, two fast prediction methods, RIsearch2 and RIblast, have been developed to predict transcriptome-scale interactions or long RNA interactions. The key idea of the software acceleration of these tools was the integration of a seed-and-extend method, which is used in fast sequence alignment tools, into RNA-RNA interaction prediction. As a result, the two software programs were ten to a thousand times faster than the existing tools; because of this acceleration, detection of genome-wide microRNA target sites or interaction partners of function-unknown long noncoding RNAs has become possible. In this review, we describe the basic concept of the algorithm, its applications, and the future perspectives of the fast RNA-RNA interaction prediction tools.

Bioinformatics Approaches for Determining the Functional Impact of Repetitive Elements on Non-coding RNAs

With a large number of annotated non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), repetitive sequences are found to constitute functional components (termed as repetitive elements) in ncRNAs that perform specific biological functions. Bioinformatics analysis is a powerful tool for improving our understanding of the role of repetitive elements in ncRNAs. This chapter summarizes recent findings that reveal the role of repetitive elements in ncRNAs. Furthermore, relevant bioinformatics approaches are systematically reviewed, which promises to provide valuable resources for studying the functional impact of repetitive elements on ncRNAs.