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Rahman ASMZ, Timmerman L, Gallardo F, Cardona ST. Identification of putative essential protein domains from high-density transposon insertion sequencing. Sci Rep 2022; 12:962. [PMID: 35046497 PMCID: PMC8770471 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05028-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2021] [Accepted: 12/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
A first clue to gene function can be obtained by examining whether a gene is required for life in certain standard conditions, that is, whether a gene is essential. In bacteria, essential genes are usually identified by high-density transposon mutagenesis followed by sequencing of insertion sites (Tn-seq). These studies assign the term "essential" to whole genes rather than the protein domain sequences that encode the essential functions. However, genes can code for multiple protein domains that evolve their functions independently. Therefore, when essential genes code for more than one protein domain, only one of them could be essential. In this study, we defined this subset of genes as "essential domain-containing" (EDC) genes. Using a Tn-seq data set built-in Burkholderia cenocepacia K56-2, we developed an in silico pipeline to identify EDC genes and the essential protein domains they encode. We found forty candidate EDC genes and demonstrated growth defect phenotypes using CRISPR interference (CRISPRi). This analysis included two knockdowns of genes encoding the protein domains of unknown function DUF2213 and DUF4148. These putative essential domains are conserved in more than two hundred bacterial species, including human and plant pathogens. Together, our study suggests that essentiality should be assigned to individual protein domains rather than genes, contributing to a first functional characterization of protein domains of unknown function.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lukas Timmerman
- Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Flyn Gallardo
- Department of Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
| | - Silvia T Cardona
- Department of Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
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DELEAT: gene essentiality prediction and deletion design for bacterial genome reduction. BMC Bioinformatics 2021; 22:444. [PMID: 34537011 PMCID: PMC8449488 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-021-04348-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2021] [Accepted: 08/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background The study of gene essentiality is fundamental to understand the basic principles of life, as well as for applications in many fields. In recent decades, dozens of sets of essential genes have been determined using different experimental and bioinformatics approaches, and this information has been useful for genome reduction of model organisms. Multiple in silico strategies have been developed to predict gene essentiality, but no optimal algorithm or set of gene features has been found yet, especially for non-model organisms with incomplete functional annotation. Results We have developed DELEAT v0.1 (DELetion design by Essentiality Analysis Tool), an easy-to-use bioinformatic tool which integrates an in silico gene essentiality classifier in a pipeline allowing automatic design of large-scale deletions in any bacterial genome. The essentiality classifier consists of a novel logistic regression model based on only six gene features which are not dependent on experimental data or functional annotation. As a proof of concept, we have applied this pipeline to the determination of dispensable regions in the genome of Bartonella quintana str. Toulouse. In this already reduced genome, 35 possible deletions have been delimited, spanning 29% of the genome. Conclusions Built on in silico gene essentiality predictions, we have developed an analysis pipeline which assists researchers throughout multiple stages of bacterial genome reduction projects, and created a novel classifier which is simple, fast, and universally applicable to any bacterial organism with a GenBank annotation file. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12859-021-04348-5.
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V K MA, Chandrasekaran VM, Pandurangan S. Protein Domain Level Cancer Drug Targets in the Network of MAPK Pathways. IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AND BIOINFORMATICS 2019; 16:2057-2065. [PMID: 29993692 DOI: 10.1109/tcbb.2018.2829507] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Proteins in the MAPK pathways considered as potential drug targets for cancer treatment. Pathways along with the cross-talks increase their scope to view them as a network of MAPK pathways. Side effect causing targeted domains act as a proxy for drug targets due to its structural similarity and frequent reuse of their variants. We proposed to identify non-repeatable protein domains as the drug targets to disrupt the signal transduction than targeting the whole protein. Network based approach is used to understand the contribution of 52 domains in non-hub, non-essential, and intra-pathway cancerous nodes and to identify potential drug target domains. 34 distinct domains in the cancerous proteins are playing vital roles in making cancer as a complex disease and pose challenges to identify potential drug targets. Distribution of domain families follows the power law in the network. Single promiscuous domains are contributing to the formation of hubs like Pkinease, Pkinease Tyr, and Ras. Hub nodes are positively correlated with the domain coverage and targeting them would disrupt functional properties of the proteins. EIF 4EBP, alpha Kinase, Sel1, ROKNT, and KH 1 are the domains identified as potential domain targets for the disruption of the signaling mechanism involved in cancer.
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Wen QF, Liu S, Dong C, Guo HX, Gao YZ, Guo FB. Geptop 2.0: An Updated, More Precise, and Faster Geptop Server for Identification of Prokaryotic Essential Genes. Front Microbiol 2019; 10:1236. [PMID: 31214154 PMCID: PMC6558110 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.01236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2019] [Accepted: 05/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Geptop has performed effectively in the identification of prokaryotic essential genes since its first release in 2013. It estimates gene essentiality for prokaryotes based on orthology and phylogeny. Genome-scale essentiality data of more prokaryotic species are available, and the information has been collected into public essential gene repositories such as DEG and OGEE. A faster and more accurate toolkit is needed to meet the increasing prokaryotic genome data. We updated Geptop by supplementing more validated essentiality data into reference set (from 19 to 37 species), and introducing multi-process technology to accelerate the computing speed. Compared with Geptop 1.0 and other gene essentiality prediction models, Geptop 2.0 can generate more stable predictions and finish the computation in a shorter time. The software is available both as an online server and a downloadable standalone application. We hope that the improved Geptop 2.0 will facilitate researches in gene essentiality and the development of novel antibacterial drugs. The gene essentiality prediction tool is available at http://cefg.uestc.cn/geptop.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qing-Feng Wen
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Shuo Liu
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Chuan Dong
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Hai-Xia Guo
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Yi-Zhou Gao
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Feng-Biao Guo
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
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Dong C, Jin YT, Hua HL, Wen QF, Luo S, Zheng WX, Guo FB. Comprehensive review of the identification of essential genes using computational methods: focusing on feature implementation and assessment. Brief Bioinform 2018; 21:171-181. [PMID: 30496347 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bby116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2018] [Revised: 11/01/2018] [Accepted: 11/02/2018] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Essential genes have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to the important functions of these genes in organisms. Among the methods used to identify the essential genes, accurate and efficient computational methods can make up for the deficiencies of expensive and time-consuming experimental technologies. In this review, we have collected researches on essential gene predictions in prokaryotes and eukaryotes and summarized the five predominant types of features used in these studies. The five types of features include evolutionary conservation, domain information, network topology, sequence component and expression level. We have described how to implement the useful forms of these features and evaluated their performance based on the data of Escherichia coli MG1655, Bacillus subtilis 168 and human. The prerequisite and applicable range of these features is described. In addition, we have investigated the techniques used to weight features in various models. To facilitate researchers in the field, two available online tools, which are accessible for free and can be directly used to predict gene essentiality in prokaryotes and humans, were referred. This article provides a simple guide for the identification of essential genes in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chuan Dong
- School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Yan-Ting Jin
- School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Hong-Li Hua
- School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Qing-Feng Wen
- School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Sen Luo
- School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Wen-Xin Zheng
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Feng-Biao Guo
- School of Life Science and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, Intelligent Learning Institute for Science and Application, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
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Folador EL, de Carvalho PVSD, Silva WM, Ferreira RS, Silva A, Gromiha M, Ghosh P, Barh D, Azevedo V, Röttger R. In silico identification of essential proteins in Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis based on protein-protein interaction networks. BMC SYSTEMS BIOLOGY 2016; 10:103. [PMID: 27814699 PMCID: PMC5097352 DOI: 10.1186/s12918-016-0346-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2016] [Accepted: 10/18/2016] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Background Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis (Cp) is a gram-positive bacterium that is classified into equi and ovis serovars. The serovar ovis is the etiological agent of caseous lymphadenitis, a chronic infection affecting sheep and goats, causing economic losses due to carcass condemnation and decreased production of meat, wool, and milk. Current diagnosis or treatment protocols are not fully effective and, thus, require further research of Cp pathogenesis. Results Here, we mapped known protein-protein interactions (PPI) from various species to nine Cp strains to reconstruct parts of the potential Cp interactome and to identify potentially essential proteins serving as putative drug targets. On average, we predict 16,669 interactions for each of the nine strains (with 15,495 interactions shared among all strains). An in silico sanity check suggests that the potential networks were not formed by spurious interactions but have a strong biological bias. With the inferred Cp networks we identify 181 essential proteins, among which 41 are non-host homologous. Conclusions The list of candidate interactions of the Cp strains lay the basis for developing novel hypotheses and designing according wet-lab studies. The non-host homologous essential proteins are attractive targets for therapeutic and diagnostic proposes. They allow for searching of small molecule inhibitors of binding interactions enabling modern drug discovery. Overall, the predicted Cp PPI networks form a valuable and versatile tool for researchers interested in Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12918-016-0346-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edson Luiz Folador
- Department of General Biology, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil.,Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Para, Belém, PA, Brazil.,Biotechnology Center (CBiotec), Federal University of Paraiba (UFPB), João Pessoa, Brazil
| | - Paulo Vinícius Sanches Daltro de Carvalho
- Department of General Biology, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil.,Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
| | - Wanderson Marques Silva
- Department of General Biology, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
| | - Rafaela Salgado Ferreira
- Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
| | - Artur Silva
- Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Para, Belém, PA, Brazil
| | - Michael Gromiha
- Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Tamilnadu, India
| | - Preetam Ghosh
- Department of Computer Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
| | - Debmalya Barh
- Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology (IIOAB), Nonakuri, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India
| | - Vasco Azevedo
- Department of General Biology, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
| | - Richard Röttger
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
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