Huntley Rachael P, Sitnikov Dmitry, Orlic-Milacic Marija, Balakrishnan Rama, D'Eustachio Peter, Gillespie Marc E, Howe Doug, Kalea Anastasia Z, Maegdefessel Lars, Osumi-Sutherland David, Petri Victoria, Smith Jennifer R, Van Auken Kimberly, Wood Valerie, Zampetaki Anna, Mayr Manuel, Lovering Ruth C
Centre for Cardiovascular Genetics, Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London WC1E 6JF, United Kingdom.
The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609, USA.
RNA. 2016 May;22(5):667-76. doi: 10.1261/rna.055301.115. Epub 2016 Feb 25.
MicroRNA regulation of developmental and cellular processes is a relatively new field of study, and the available research data have not been organized to enable its inclusion in pathway and network analysis tools. The association of gene products with terms from the Gene Ontology is an effective method to analyze functional data, but until recently there has been no substantial effort dedicated to applying Gene Ontology terms to microRNAs. Consequently, when performing functional analysis of microRNA data sets, researchers have had to rely instead on the functional annotations associated with the genes encoding microRNA targets. In consultation with experts in the field of microRNA research, we have created comprehensive recommendations for the Gene Ontology curation of microRNAs. This curation manual will enable provision of a high-quality, reliable set of functional annotations for the advancement of microRNA research. Here we describe the key aspects of the work, including development of the Gene Ontology to represent this data, standards for describing the data, and guidelines to support curators making these annotations. The full microRNA curation guidelines are available on the GO Consortium wiki (http://wiki.geneontology.org/index.php/MicroRNA_GO_annotation_manual).
微小RNA对发育和细胞过程的调控是一个相对较新的研究领域，现有的研究数据尚未进行整理，无法纳入通路和网络分析工具。基因产物与基因本体术语的关联是分析功能数据的有效方法，但直到最近，还没有大量工作致力于将基因本体术语应用于微小RNA。因此，在对微小RNA数据集进行功能分析时，研究人员不得不依赖与编码微小RNA靶标的基因相关的功能注释。在与微小RNA研究领域的专家协商后，我们为微小RNA的基因本体注释制定了全面的建议。本注释手册将为推进微小RNA研究提供一套高质量、可靠的功能注释。在这里，我们描述了这项工作的关键方面，包括用于表示这些数据的基因本体的开发、描述数据的标准以及支持注释人员进行这些注释的指南。完整的微小RNA注释指南可在基因本体联合会维基（http://wiki.geneontology.org/index.php/MicroRNA_GO_annotation_manual）上获取。
