Department of Molecular Microbiology, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.
Clin Microbiol Infect. 2012 Jul;18 Suppl 4:35-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-0691.2012.03864.x.
In the current post-genomic era, only 3% of all genes have been annotated based on experimental evidence. Even though functions can readily be predicted for many genes, 25% of these are likely to be wrong. The most widely used methods for function prediction rely on sequence similarity, which might be misleading in many cases. Other methods such as genomic context or phylogenetic profiles have been developed to increase gene annotation accuracy; nevertheless these are only efficient when complete genome sequences are available. Here we propose a new approach based on riboswitch identification. Riboswitches are highly conserved regulators of gene expression located in the 5' untranslated region of certain genes. When transcribed they adopt three-dimensional structures that recognize their ligands with great affinity and specificity. This specificity is a key issue for our method, allowing functional assignment with great accuracy.
在当前的后基因组时代，仅有 3%的基因基于实验证据被注释。尽管许多基因的功能可以很容易地被预测，但其中 25%可能是错误的。功能预测最广泛使用的方法依赖于序列相似性，这在许多情况下可能会产生误导。其他方法，如基因组上下文或系统发育谱，已被开发用于提高基因注释的准确性；然而，只有在有完整基因组序列的情况下，这些方法才有效。在这里，我们提出了一种基于核糖开关识别的新方法。核糖开关是位于某些基因 5'非翻译区的高度保守的基因表达调控因子。当被转录时，它们采用三维结构，以极高的亲和力和特异性识别它们的配体。这种特异性是我们方法的一个关键问题，允许非常准确地进行功能分配。
