AN OVERVIEW OF GENE
STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
PREDICTION
Marcus Chibucos, Ph.D.
University of Maryland School of Medicine
June 2014
Overview & goals
• Understand
• 1. How we predict presence & structure of coding & non-coding
genes in the genome
• 2. How we know what a gene product does & how evidence is
used to support this
• When searching databases like FungiDB or InterPro,
understand the meaning of terms like: protein motif,
domain, ortholog, HMM, EC, GO annotation, and so forth
• Learn fundamentals with prokaryotes
• Overview of eukaryotes
GENE STRUCTURAL
ANNOTATION
3
What is a gene model?
Yandell and Ence (2012) Nature Reviews Genetics. 13:329-342.
Fundamental methods of pattern
detection
• Intrinsic (ab initio/de novo, “from the beginning”)
• Uses only DNA sequence & the inherent patterns within it
• Canonical features like start & stop codons
• Extrinsic
• Uses additional sources of evidence information
• Homologous proteins
• mRNA (ESTs, RNA-Seq)
• Synteny
PROKARYOTIC
STRUCTURAL
ANNOTATION
6
Prokaryotic gene structure
promotor
RBS
ATG
TAG
start
stop
AUG
UAG
DNA
mRNA
Open reading frame (ORF)
start
RBS
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
Start with DNA sequence
DNA sequence has 6 translation frames
• 3 on forward strand, 3 on reverse strand
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
Graphical display of 6-frame translation
Each horizontal bar represents one of the translation frames.
Tall vertical lines represent translation stops (TAG, TAA, TGA).
Short vertical lines represent translation starts (ATG, GTG, TTG).
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
Graphical display of 6-frame translation
start
These are examples of the many
ORFs in this graphic.
stop
• What is an “ORF”?
Prokaryotic gene finders
• Glimmer
• http://www.cbcb.umd.edu/software/glimmer
• prok and euk versions
• Prodigal
• http://prodigal.ornl.gov
• GeneMark
• http://exon.gatech.edu
• prok and euk versions
• EasyGene
• http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/EasyGene
• Many others exist (or have existed...)
Glimmer
• Tool uses interpolated Markov models (IMMs) to predict which
ORFs in a genome contain real genes.
• Glimmer compares nucleotide patterns it finds in a training set
of genes known (or believed) to be real to nucleotide patterns
of ORFs in the whole genome. ORFs with patterns similar to
the patterns in the training genes are considered real
themselves.
• Using Glimmer is a two-part process
• Train Glimmer with genes from organism that was sequenced, which
are known, or strongly believed, to be real genes.
• Run trained Glimmer against the entire genome sequence.
• This is actually how most ab initio gene predictors—including
eukaryotic predictors like Augustus, GeneID, SNAP, and others—work.
Gathering the training set
• Using verified, published sequences ideal… not always possible
• Minimum needed is 250 kb of total sequence
• BLAST translated ORFs against a protein database (slow)
• Keep only very strong matches
• Gather long non-overlapping ORFs (fast)
• Many more complex strategies exist, especially for eukaryotes
these
not these
Training Glimmer
• All k-mers from size 5-8 in sequence are tracked
• Frequency of each nucleotide following any given k-mer is
recorded
• This data set is used to build a statistical model that provides
the probability that any given nucleotide will follow any given kmer
• This model is used to score the ORFs in the genome
• Those where the patterns of nucleotides/k-mers match the
model are predicted to be real genes
Candidate ORFs
+3
+2
+1
-1
-2
-3
• Choose a minimum length cut-off
• Blue ORFs meet this minimum
• Each blue ORF will be scored against the model built from
the training genes
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
Categorizing ORFs as genes or not
• Some ORFs will score well to the model (green)
• Some will not (red)
• Green ORFs will be retained as predicted genes (blue
arrows depicted along the DNA molecule in black at the
bottom of the figure)
+3
+2
+1
-1
-2
-3
Potential problems to watch for
• False Positives
• An ORF is predicted to be a gene, but really isn’t
• May result in overlaps
• False Negatives
• An ORF is not predicted to be a gene, but really is
• May result in “gaps” in feature predictions
• Wrong start site chosen
• Most genes have multiple start codons near the beginning – it can
be hard to determine which is the true one
+3
+2
+1
-1
-2
-3
Is one of these a False Positive?
Probably. Genes don’t generally
overlap to this extent in prokaryotes.
• What about eukaryotes?
+3
+2
+1
-1
-2
-3
Is this a false negative?
Probably. There are not large regions without gene content in
prokaryotes. • What about eukaryotes?
Why might this happen?
If a region of DNA is different in composition than the rest of the genome
then the gene finders will score the ORFs poorly when in fact they are
real genes. Different composition may come about in many ways – one
common way is through lateral (or horizontal) transfer, e.g. things such
as phage integration, transposition, et cetera.
21
Translation start sites
- Start site frequency: ATG >> GTG >> TTG
- Ribosome binding site (RBS): AG rich sequence 5-11 bp upstream of the start codon
- Similarity to match proteins, in BER & multiple alignments
- Example below shows beginning of a BER alignment. (DNA sequence reads down
in columns for each codon.) Homology starts exactly at first atg (current chosen
start, aa #1). There is favorable RBS (gagggaga) beginning 9 bp upstream of this
atg. No reason to consider the ttg, and no justification for moving to the second atg
(this would cut off some similarity and it does not have an RBS).
3 possible
start sites
RBS upstream
of chosen start
BER match
This ORF’s upstream boundary
22
Overlap analysis
When two ORFs overlap (boxed areas),
the one without similarity to anything
(another protein, an HMM, etc.) is
removed. If both don’t match anything,
other considerations such as presence in
a putative operon and potential start
codon quality are considered. Small
regions of overlap are allowed (circle).
23
Interevidence regions
Areas of the genome with no genes and areas within genes
without any kind of evidence (no match to another protein,
HMM, etc., such regions may include an entire gene in
case of “hypothetical proteins”) are translated in all 6
frames and searched against a non-redundant protein
database.
It’s not just about proteins
• Can predict many
genes beyond protein
coding ones
Manatee genome viewer
http://manatee.igs.umaryland.edu/
http://manatee.sourceforge.net/igs/index.shtml
Artemis gene model curation tool
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/resources/software/artemis/
EUKARYOTIC
STRUCTURAL
ANNOTATION
29
Eukaryotic gene structure prediction
…now things
get more
complicated
Gene finder evaluation
• Sensitivity (Sn) measures false negatives
• The fraction of a known reference feature that is
predicted by a gene predictor
= TP / (TP + FN)
• Specificity (Sp) measures false positives
• The fraction of the prediction that overlaps a
known reference feature
= TP / (TP + FP)
• Sensitivity (Sn) false negatives = TP / (TP + FN)
• Specificity (Sp) false positives = TP / (TP + FP)
Real gene model
True positives
Sn = 3/(3+0) = 1.0
Sp = 3/(3+0) = 1.0
Sn = 1.0
Sp = 0.75
Sn = 0.67
Sp = 1.0
False positive
False negative
• Assessed at different levels
–
–
–
–
Base
Exon (pictured above)
Transcript
Gene
True positives True negatives
Intrinsic (ab initio) success rates
• Prokaryotic – very good
• Eukaryotic – not so good
>95% correct
~50% correct (shown below)
http://bioinf.uni-greifswald.de/augustus/accuracy (accessed May 2013)
Complexities of eukaryotic gene finding
• Large eukaryote genomes have low coding density compared to
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
prokaryotes where all long ORFs encode genes
Genomic repeats
Non-canonical (ATG) start codon
Splicing (exons & introns) - alternative splicing (40-50% genes)
Pseudogenes
Long genes or short genes
Long introns
Non-canonical introns
UTR introns
Overlapping genes on opposite strands
Nested genes overlapping on strand or in intron
Polycistronic peptide coding genes
• One mRNA codes for several very short (~11 aa) peptides… regulatory
function
• Even if you have some RNA (helpful) transcription not always active
• Require multiple biological conditions
Masking repeats is essential
• RepeatMasker (http://www.repeatmasker.org) finds
interspersed repeats & low complexity DNA sequences by
comparing DNA sequence to curated genomic-specific libraries
• Simple Repeats – 1-5 bp duplications such as A, CA, CGG
• Tandem Repeats - 100-200 bases found at centromeres & telomeres
• Segmental Duplications - 10-300 kilobases blocks copied to another
genomic region
• Interspersed Repeats
• Processed pseudogenes, retrotranscripts (short-interspersed elements-
SINES): Non-functional copies of RNA genes reintegrated into the genome
via reverse transcriptase
• DNA transposons
• Retrovirus retrotransposons
• Non-retrovirus retrotransposons (long interspersed elements- LINES)
• ~50% of human genomic DNA currently will be masked
• RepeatModeler searches for repeats ab initio and can find not
previously characterized repeats
Repeats yield similarities in nonhomologous regions
GENE1
Using unmasked genomic DNA
GENE2
GENE1
Using masked genomic DNA
GENE2
Alkes L. Price, Neil C. Jones and Pavel A. Pevzner (June 28, 2005)
http://bix.ucsd.edu/repeatscout/repeatscout-ismb.ppt
Predicted genes that are actually repeats
Gene
predictors
Using masked genomic DNA
No
models
Using unmasked
genomic DNA
Predicted
models
Repeats
Factors affecting gene predictor results
• Underlying algorithm
• Program parameters
• Training set (number and quality of models)
• Extrinsic data (expression data, protein/genome alignment)
Training set 1
Training set 2
GeneMark-ES (self training)
9,024
9,024
Augustus trained on Fungus
8,694
9,011
Augustus with “optimize” step
8,503
8,920
SNAP trained on Fungus
7,335
7,955
GlimmerHMM trained on Fungus
10,313
11,894
Scipio alignments with other Fungi
10,691
10,691
Trinity assemblies GMAP aligned
9,527
9,527
Trinity (Jaccard clip option on)
10,023
10,023
GLEAN consensus
8,705
9,123
Which model is “correct”?
Models from
three different
predictors/condi
tions
Consensus
model
Protein
alignments
We rely on certain conventions
• Rules are based on gene composition & signal
• First, what is the basic structure of a gene?
• Coding region (exon) is inside ORF of one reading frame
• All exons on same strand for a given gene
• Exons within a gene can have different reading frame
• Inherent frequency patterns exist…
Dimer frequency distribution
• Dimer frequency in protein sequence is not evenly
distributed and is organism specific
• Some amino acids “prefer” to be next to one another
• Most dicodons are biased toward either coding or non-coding, not
neutral
• Expected frequency of dimer
• If random = 0.25% (1/20 * 1/20)
• If a dimer has lower than expected frequency, protein less likely to
contain it… and the reasoning follows that if a sequence does
contain it, it is less likely to exist in a coding region
• Example: In human genome, AAA AAA appears 1% of time in
coding regions and 5% of time in non-coding regions
Splicing
•
Find all GT/AG donor/acceptor sites
•
Score with position-specific scoring matrix
(PSSM) model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pre-mRNA_to_mRNA.svg
splice
donor
polybranch pyrimidine splice
tract
acceptor
point
Modified from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Intron_miguelferig.jpg
Position Specific Scoring Matrix (PSSM)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
A 1 1
1
0
0
0
1
1
G 1
0
0
5
0
1
2
0
C 2
1
4
0
0
2
1
4
U 1
2
0
0
5
2 1
0
1
Let’s say you look at 5 splice donor
(GU) sites:
ATCGUCGC
UCAGUGGC
CUCGUCCC
GUCGUUAC
CACGUCUA
Gene finders use this information to predict where gene
featuresGene
are.
For this to work, one must have confirmed splice sites
to use for training. These are not always available for
new genomes… and some splice sites are noncanonical… and some genes are alternatively spliced…
so it can become somewhat complex.
Translation start prediction
• Position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM)
• Certain nucleotides tend to be in position around start site (ATG),
and others not so
• Such biased nucleotide distribution is basis for translation start
prediction
Figure courtesy of Sucheta Tripathy
http://www.slideshare.net/tsucheta/29th-june2011
Mathematical model
• Fi(X): freq. of X (A, G, C, T) in position I
• Score string by Σ log (Fi (X)/0.25)
Figure courtesy of Sucheta Tripathy
http://www.slideshare.net/tsucheta/29th-june2011
Pattern-based exon & gene prediction
• Assess different criteria
• Coding region inside ORF (start & stop, no interrupting stops)
• Dimer frequency
• Coding score
• Donor site score
• Acceptor site score
• Other factors to consider
• GC content
• Exon length distribution
• Polymerase II promoter elements (GC box, CCAT box, TATA region)
• Ribosome binding site
• Polyadenylation signal upstream poly-A cleavage site
• Termination signal downstream poly-A cleavage site
Example of ab initio gene predictor flow
http://genome.crg.es/software/geneid/
Confirming a predicted gene with cDNA
26 exons!
http://pasa.sourceforge.net/
Extrinsic evidence & manual curation
• Expression data
• EST (expressed sequence tag) sequences
• RNA-seq reads
• mRNAcDNA
• High throughput sequencing
• Align reads to genome sequence
• Homology based approaches
• Protein (or expression data) sequences from other organisms
• Nucleic acid conservation via tblastx or many other methods
• Ortholog mapping/synteny
• Experimentally confirmed gene products & gene families
• Manual curation is often done by experts in a domain
RNA-seq of transcripts as evidence for
gene models
mRNA
cDNA
GCTAATGCGAAGTCCTAGACCAGATTGAC
ATGCGATGCAGCTGACGCTGGCTAATGCG
CGCATAGCCAGATGACCATGATGCGATGC
TGACAGATTAGACAGTAGGACAGATAGAC
……..many millions of reads
1. Gene model is confirmed by transcript information
2. Part of the gene model is confirmed but the exons
predicted in the middle do not have transcript
evidence. Does this mean they are not real? Not
necessarily.
3. Transcript sequencing allows for novel gene
detection. There is transcript evidence for the
presence of a gene (or at least transcription) in an
area of the genome without a gene model currently
predicted.
?
1
3
Reads mapped to genome with gene models
2
Splice boundaries and alternate
transcripts
• Some reads will span
the intron/exon
boundaries
• Allows for verification of
gene models
• Observation of alternate
transcripts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RNA-Seq-alignment.png
Multiple genome alignment & conservation
Experimentally based manual curation
• We have
experimentally
characterized
protein
• What do I know
about this gene
family?
• What do I know
about genes in
general?
• No introns in
multiples of three,
short introns, et
cetera
Leverage comparative genomics
Arnaud, et al. (2010)
Nucleic Acids
Res.38(Database
issue): D420-7.
Gather models for ab initio training set
• Get models verified via expression, homology, or manual curation
• Use manually curated genes from your organism
• Generate preliminary ab initio model set and then do a homology
search at Swiss-Prot, retaining most-conserved genes
• Use CEGMA (Core Eukaryotic Genes Mapping Approach) to predict
highly conserved genes
• Align proteins from related organisms to your genome with splice-aware
aligner, thus creating models with exon boundaries that have homologs
• Align RNA-seq reads or ESTs to your genome to create or update
existing models.
• Use models with multiple sources & remove highly similar ones
OR
• Use pre-existing training set related to your organism
• For example, I could use chicken if I am studying finch
• Many software packages provide parameter files for common organisms
Run gene finder as online or stand alone
• Augustus web has text &
graphical output 
Click!
Predictions stored in GFF3
or GFF2 or GTF format
RNA-seq can show differential expression
of alternative transcripts
Combiners
• Incorporate multiple evidence types including ab initio
predictions, expression data, and homology—and these
usually perform the best
• Glean
• Evidence Modeler (EVM)
• Jigsaw
• Maker (actually a whole pipeline that can be used online)
• PASA (combines predicted structures with expression data)
• And more…
• Note that many ab inito predictors, for example Augustus,
incorporate other data types such as protein alignments
or expression data
One example, the Glean combiner
•
•
Glean paper at http://genomebiology.com/2007/8/1/R13
Top track below is a statistically derived combination of the ones below it
Example of annotation pipeline
• Fungal Genome Annotation Standard Operating
Procedure (SOP) at JGI
• Repeat masking
• Mapping ESTs (BLAT) from organism and publicly available
•
•
•
•
•
proteins from related taxa (BLASTx)
Ab initio (FGENESH, GeneMark), homolgy-based (FGENESH+,
Genewise seeded by BLASTx against nr), EST-based (EST_map)
gene prediction
EST clustering to improve gene models
Filtering overlapping gene models based on protein homology and
EST support to derive “best” model
Non-coding genes with tRNAscan-SE
…ready for functional annotation
http://genome.jgi.doe.gov/programs/fungi/FungalGenomeAnnotationSOP.pdf
nGASP – the nematode genome
annotation assessment project
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/9/549
Take home message
• Intrinsic & extrinsic prediction methods
• Intrinsic gene finders need high-quality training datasets
in order to produce good predictions
• “Correct” gene predictions are a moving target
• Note the steady decrease in the number of predicted genes as the
human genome is further curated
• Gene finders & gene finding pipelines produce
predictions, which must be verified and refined – do not
take them at face value
• The more pieces of high-quality evidence you add to the
process the better
• In eukaryotes especially, there is not necessarily only one
correct model
PROTEIN FUNCTIONAL
ANNOTATION
63
64
Annotation defined
• annotate – to make or furnish critical or explanatory notes or
comment.
-- Merriam-Webster dictionary
• genome annotation – the process of taking the raw DNA sequence
produced by the genome-sequencing projects and adding the layers
of analysis and interpretation necessary to extract its biological
significance and place it into the context of our understanding of
biological processes.
-- Lincoln Stein, PMID 11433356
• Gene Ontology (GO) annotation – the process of assigning GO
terms to gene products… according to two general principles: first,
annotations should be attributed to a source; second, each annotation
should indicate the evidence on which it is based.
-- http://www.geneontology.org
65
What do our predicted genes do?
• What we would like:
• Experimental knowledge of function
• Literature curation
• Perform experiment
• Not possible for all proteins in most organisms (not even close in most)
• What we actually have:
• Sequence similarity
• Similarity to motifs, domains, or whole sequences
• Protein not DNA for finding function
• Shared sequence can imply shared function
• All sequence-based annotations are putative until proven experimentally
66
Basic set of protein annotations
• protein name - descriptive common name for the protein
• e.g. “ribokinase”
• gene symbol - mnemonic abbreviation for the gene
• e.g. “recA”
• EC number - only applicable to enzymes
• e.g. 1.4.3.2
• role - what the protein is doing in the cell and why
• e.g. “amino acid biosynthesis”
• supporting evidence
• accession numbers of BER and HMM matches
• TmHMM, SignalP, LipoP
• whatever information you used to make the annotation
• unique identifier
• e.g. locus ids
67
Alignments/Families/Motifs
•
pairwise alignments
– two protein’s amino acid sequences aligned next to each
other so that the maximum number of amino acids match
•
multiple alignments
– 3 or more amino acid sequences aligned to each other so
that the maximum number of amino acids match in each
column
– more meaningful than pairwise alignments since it is
much less likely that several proteins will share sequence
similarity due to chance alone, than that 2 will share
sequence similarity due to chance alone. Therefore, such
shared similarity is more likely to be indicative of shared
function.
•
protein families
– clusters of proteins that all share sequence similarity and
presumably similar function
– may be modeled by various statistical techniques
•
motifs
– short regions of amino acid sequence shared by many
proteins
• transmembrane regions
• active sites
• signal peptides
68
Important terms to understand
• homologs
• two sequences have evolved from the same common ancestor
• they may or may not share the same function
• two proteins are either homologs of each other or they are not. A protein can
not be more, or less, homologous to one protein than to another.
• orthologs
• a type of homolog where the two sequences are in different species that arose
from a common ancestor. The fact of the speciation event has created the two
copies of the sequence.
• orthologs often, but not always, share the same function
• paralogs
• a type of homolog where the two sequences have arisen due to a gene
duplication within one species
• paralogs will initially have the same function (just after the duplication) but as
time goes by, one copy will be free to evolve new functions, as the other copy
will maintain the original function. This process is called “neofunctionalization”.
• xenologs
• a type of ortholog where the two sequences have arisen due to lateral (or
horizontal) transfer
ancestor
speciation to
orthologs
duplication
to paralogs
lateral transfer to
a different species
makes xenologs
one paralog
evolves a
new function
“neofunctionalization” – the duplicated
gene/protein develops a new function
70
Pairwise alignments
• There are numerous tools available for pairwise
alignments
• NCBI BLAST resources
• FASTA searches
• Many more
• At IGS we use a tool called BER (BLAST-extend-repraze)
that combines BLAST and Smith-Waterman approaches
• Actually much of bioinformatics is based on reusing tools in new
and creative ways…
71
genome’s protein set
vs.
non-redundant protein database
BER
BLAST
mini-db for
protein #1
mini-db for
protein #2
,
mini-db for
protein #3000
mini-db for
protein #3
...
,
Query
protein is
extended
Significant hits
(using a liberal
cutoff) put into
mini-dbs for
each protein
modified SmithWaterman Alignment
BER
alignment
vs.
Extended Query protein by 300 nt
Mini database
72
BER
Alignment
…to look through inframe stop codons
and across
frameshifts to
determine if
similarity continues
73
74
The extensions help in the
detection of frameshifts (FS)
and point mutations resulting
in in-frame stop codons (PM).
This is indicated when
similarity extends outside the
coordinates of the protein
coding sequence. Blue line
indicates predicted protein
coding sequence, green line
indicates up- and downstream
extensions. Red line is the
match protein.
Extensions in BER
end5
end3
ORFxxxxx
300 bp
300 bp
search protein
match protein
normal full length match
!
!
FS
similarity extending through a frameshift upstream or downstream into
extensions
*
similarity extending in the same frame through a stop codon
PM
75
How do you know when an alignment is
good enough to determine function?
• Good question! No easy answer…
• Generally, you want a minimum of 40%-50% identity over
the full lengths of both query and match with conservation
of all important structural and catalytic sites
• However, some information can be gained from partial
alignments
• Domains
• Motifs
• BEWARE OF TRANSITIVE ANNOTATION ERRORS
76
Pitfalls of transitive annotation
Transitive Annotation
is the process of
passing annotation
from one protein (or
gene) to another
based on sequence
similarity:
A
B
B
C
C
D
• Current public datasets full of such errors
A’s name has passed to D
from A through several
intermediates.
-This is fine if A is similar to
D.
-This is NOT fine if A is NOT
similar to D
Transitive annotation errors
are easy to make and happen
often.
• A good way to avoid transitive annotation errors is to require
that in a pairwise match, the match annotation must be trusted
• Be conservative
• Err on the side of not making an annotation, when possibly you should,
rather than making an annotation when probably you shouldn’t.
77
Trusted annotations
• It is important to know what proteins in our search
database are characterized.
• proteins marked as characterized from public databases
• Gene Ontology repository (more on this later)
• GenBank (only recently began)
• UniProt
• proteins at “protein existence level 1”
• Proteins with literature reference tags indicating characterization
78
UniProt UniProt http://www.uniprot.org
• Swiss-Prot
• European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) and Swiss Institute of
Bioinformatics (SIB)
• all entries manually curated
• http://www.expasy.ch/sprot
• annotation includes
• links to references
• coordinates of protein features
• links to cross-referenced databases
• TrEMBL
• EBI and SIB
• entries have not been manually curated
• once they are accessions remain the same but move into Swiss-Prot
• http://www.expasy.ch/sprot
• Protein Information Resource (PIR)
• http://pir.georgetown.edu
79
UniProt
80
81
82
83
84
Enzyme Commission
Recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee of the International
Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology on the Nomenclature and
Classification of Enzymes by the Reactions they Catalyse
• not sequence based
• categorized collection of enzymatic reactions
• reactions have accession numbers indicating the type of
reaction, for example EC 1.2.1.5
• http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iubmb/enzyme/
• http://www.expasy.ch/enzyme/
85
EC number
Hierarchy
All ECs starting
with #1 are some
kind of
oxidoreductase
Further numbers
narrow specificity of
the type of enzyme
A four-position EC
number describes
one particular
reaction
86
Example entry
for one specific
enzyme
87
Metabolic pathway databases
• KEGG
• http://www.genome.jp/kegg/
• MetaCyc/BioCyc
• http://metacyc.org/
• http://www.biocyc.org/
• BRENDA
• http://www.brenda-enzymes.info/
88
89
90
Hidden Markov models (HMMs)
• Statistical model of the patterns of amino acids in a multiple alignment of
proteins (called the “seed) which share sequence and, presumably, functional
similarity
• Two sets routinely used for protein functional annotation
• TIGRFAMs (www.tigr.org/TIGRFAMs/)
• Pfam (pfam.sanger.ac.uk)
• Each TIGRFAM model is assigned to a category which describes the type of
functional relationship the proteins in the model have to each other
– Equivalog - one specific function, e.g. “ribokinase”
– Subfamily - group of related functions generally with different substrate
specificities, e.g. “carbohydrate kinase”
– Superfamily - different specific functions that are related in a very general
way, e.g. “kinase”
– Domain - not necessarily full-length of the protein, contains one functional
part or structural feature of a protein, may be fairly specific or may be very
general, e.g. “ATP-binding domain”
91
Annotation attached to HMMs
• Functionally specific HMMs have specific annotations
– TIGR00433 (accession number for the model)
•
•
•
•
•
name: biotin synthase
category: equivalog
EC: 2.8.1.6
gene symbol: bioB
Roles:
– biotin biosynthesis (TIGR 77/GO:0009102)
– biotin synthase activity (GO:0004076)
• Functionally general HMMs have general annotations
– PF04055
• name: radical SAM domain protein
• category: domain
• EC: not applicable
• gene symbol: not applicable
• Roles:
– enzymes of unknown specificity (TIGR role 703)
– catalytic activity (GO:0003824)
– metabolism (GO:0008152)
HMM building
Proteins from many species
Alignments of
functionally
related proteins
act as training
sets for HMM
building
Statistical
Model
Model specific to
a family of
proteins, generally
found across
many species
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
93
HMM scores
• When a protein is searched against an HMM it receives a
BITS score and an e-value indicating the significance of the
match
T
Statistical
Model
The person building the HMM will
search the new HMM against a
Statistical
protein database and decide on
Model
the trusted and noise cutoff scores
N
• The search protein’s score is compared with the trusted and
noise cutoff scores attached to the HMM
• proteins scoring above the trusted cutoff can be assumed to be
members of the family
• proteins scoring below the noise cutoff can be assumed NOT to be
members of the family
• when proteins score in-between the trusted and noise cutoffs, the
protein may be a member of the family and may not.
94
Figure: Michelle Giglio, Ph.D., Institute for Genome Sciences,
University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2013
HMM databases
Proteins from many species
T
Alignments of
functionally
related proteins
act as training
sets for HMM
building
Examples
: Pfam
and
TIGRFA
M
Statistical
Model
Model specific to
N a family of
proteins, generally
found across
many species
Add this model to the database
Database of
HMM models,
each specific
to one protein
family and/or
functional
level
95
The cutoff scores attached to HMMs, are sometimes high and sometimes low and
sometimes even negative. There is no inherent meaning in how high or low a cutoff
score is, the important thing is the query protein’s score relative to the trusted and
noise scores.
-50
0
…above trusted: the protein is a
member of family the HMM models
N
-50
-50
-50
0
P
100
T
…below noise: the protein is not a
member of family the HMM models 100
0
…in-between noise and trusted:
the protein MAY be a member of
the family the HMM models
100
0
...above trusted and some or all
scores are negative: the protein is
a member of the family the HMM models
100
96
Orthologous groups
• COGs – have not been updated in a long time
• eggNOG – newer, more complete
2
Bi-directional
best BLAST
B
1
3
A
C
97
Motif searches
• PROSITE - http://www.expasy.ch/prosite/
– “consists of documentation entries describing protein domains,
families and functional sites as well as associated patterns to identify
them.”
• Center for Biological Sequence Analysis http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/
– Protein Sorting (7 tools)
• Signal P finds potential secreted proteins
• LipoP finds potential lipoproteins
• TargetP predicts subcellular location of proteins
– Protein function and structure (9 tools)
• TmHMM finds potential membrane spans
–
–
–
–
–
Post-translational modifications (14 tools)
Immunological features (9 tools)
Gene finding and splice sites (9 tools)
DNA microarray analysis (2 tools)
Small molecules (2 tools)
98
One-stop shopping - InterPro
• InterPro
• Brings together multiple databases of HMM, motif, and domain
information.
• Excellent annotation and documentation
• http://www.ebi.ac.uk/interpro/
99
Making annotations
• Use the information from the evidence sources to decide
what the gene/protein is doing
• Assign annotations that are appropriate to your
knowledge
• Name
• EC number
• Role
• Etc.
TIGR roles
Main Categories:
Amino acid biosynthesis
Purines, pyrimidines, nucleosides, and nucleotides
Fatty acid and phospholipidmetabolism
Biosynthesis of cofactors, prosthetic groups, and carriers
Central intermediary metabolism
Energy metabolism
Transport and binding proteins
DNA metabolism
Transcription
Protein synthesis
Protein Fate
Regulatory Functions
Signal Transduction
Cell envelope
Cellular processes
Other categories
Unknown
Hypothetical
Disrupted Reading Frame
Unclassified (not a real role)
Each main
category has
several
subcategories.
101
Names (and other annotations) should
reflect knowledge
• specific function
– Example: “adenylosuccinate lyase”, purB, 4.3.2.2
• varying knowledge about substrate specificity
– A good example: ABC transporters
• ribose ABC transporter
• sugar ABC transporter
• ABC transporter
– choosing the name at the appropriate level of specificity requires careful
evaluation of the evidence looking for specific characterized matches and
HMMs.
• family designation - no gene symbol, partial EC
– “Cbby family protein”
– “carbohydrate kinase, FGGY family”
• hypotheticals
– “hypothetical protein”
– “conserved hypothetical protein”
ONTOLOGIES
102
103
Names can be problematic….
• ….because humans do not always use precise and
consistent terminology
• Our language is riddled with
• Synonyms – different names for the same thing
• Homonyms – different things with the same name
• This makes data mining/query difficult
• What name should you assign?
• What name should you use when you search UniProt or NCBI or
any other database?
104
Synonyms
• Within any domain do people use precise & consistent language?
• Take biologists, for example…
• Mutually understood concepts – DNA, RNA, protein
• Translation & protein synthesis
• Synonym: one thing, more than one name
• Enzyme Commission reactions
• Standardized id, official name & alternative names
http://www.expasy.ch/enzyme/2.7.1.40
105
Homonyms
• Different things known by same name
• Common in biology
• Sporulation
• Vascular (plant vasculature, i.e. xylem & phloem, or vascular smooth
muscle, i.e. blood vessels?)
106
Standardization with controlled
vocabularies (CVs)
• An official list of precisely defined terms used to classify
information & facilitate its retrieval
• Flat list
• Thesaurus
• Catalog
• Benefits of CVs
– Allow standardized descriptions
– Synonyms & homonyms
addressed
– Can be cross-referenced
externally
– Facilitate electronic searching
A CV can be “…used to index
and retrieve a body of literature
in a bibliographic, factual, or
other database. An example is
the MeSH controlled vocabulary
used in MEDLINE and other
MEDLARS databases of the
NLM.”
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/hta101/ta101014.html
107
Ontology: CV with defined relationships
• Formalizes knowledge of subject with precise textual definitions
• Networked terms; child more specific (“granular”) than parent
National Drug File
108
An example is the Gene Ontology with
three controlled vocabularies
• Molecular Function
• What the gene product is doing
• Biological Process
• Why the gene product is doing what it does
• Cellular component
• Where a gene product is doing what it does
The Gene Ontology
• A good
example of a
biological
ontology
• Relationships
among
networked,
defined terms
• Vascular terms
shown with
relationships
110
Example: a GO annotation
• Associating GO term with gene product (GP)
• GP has function (6-phosphofructokinase activity)
• GP participates in process (glycolysis)
• GP is located in part of cell (cytoplasm)
• Linking GO term to GP asserts it has that attribute
• Based on literature or
•
computational methods
• Always involves:
• Learning something about gene product
• Selecting appropriate GO term
• Providing appropriate evidence code
• Citing reference [preferably open access]
• Entering information into GO annotation file
111
Annotation becomes a series of ids linked
to other proteins/genes/features
This protein is integral to
the plasma membrane and
is part of an ATP-binding
cassette (ABC) transporter
complex. It functions as
part of a transporter to
accomplish the transport of
sulfate across the plasma
membrane using ATP
hydrolysis as an energy
source.
=
• GO:0005887
• GO:0008272
• GO:0015419
• GO:0043190
112
Term name
GO ID (unique numerical identifier)
Synonyms for searching, alt.
names, misspellings…
GO slim
Precise textual definition that
describes some aspect of the
biology of the gene product
Definition
reference
Ontology relationships
(next page)
113
Genomes can be compared
• High-level biological process terms used to compare
Plasmodium and Saccharomyces (made by “slimming”)
MJ Gardner, et al. (2002) Nature 419:498-511
EVIDENCE
114
The importance of evidence tracking
•
•
•
•
The process of functional annotation involves assessing available evidence and
reaching a conclusion about what you think the protein is doing in the cell and why.
Functional annotations should only be as specific as the supporting evidence allows
All evidence that led to the annotation conclusions that were made must be stored.
In addition, detailed documentation of methodologies and general rules or guidelines
used in any annotation process should be provided.
I conclude that
you are a cat.
Why?
-You look like
other cats I know
-I heard you
meow and purr
I conclude that
you code for a
protein kinase.
Why?
-You look like other
protein kinases I know
-You have been
observed115
to add
phosphate to proteins
Knowledge & annotation specificity
• How much can we
accurately say?
Available evidence for three genes
Corresponding GO annotations
117
Types of Evidence
• Experiments (often considered the best evidence)
• Pairwise/multiple alignments
• HMM/domain matches scoring above trusted cutoff
• Metabolic Pathway analysis
• Match to an ortholog group (COG,eggNOG)
• Motifs
The Evidence
Ontology (ECO)
• ECO terms have
standardized
definitions, references &
synonyms
• Allows standardizing
evidence description
and searching by
evidence type
• Can filter by evidence
type & do other things!
• GO evidence codes are
subset of ECO
ECO roots and combinatorial term
The big picture: Evidence and sequence
repositories
Experimental pathway
(Many ECO terms describe
outputs of processes in
aggregate)
Can be described by
particular evidence term
Researcher performs
experiment...
Publish…
...annotate
Term from ontology
or other descriptive
vocabulary
Protein name,
id, et cetera
Author does analysis &
arrives at conclusions,
publishes these in paper
A different person reads
about the conclusion,
interprets & makes
annotation
How associating a piece of information with
a protein was performed. Who did the
work, a person or a computer?
Annotation stored in sequence repository
Not shown: protein
ID, date, name, et
cetera
The annotation
with a term from a
descriptive
vocabulary/ontolog
y such as the Gene
Ontolgoy
The protein
sequence
The evidence term used to support the decision to
associate the term from the descriptive vocabulary
with that particular protein
The overall experimental annotation
flow
Pure evidence term
Pure assertion
method term
Evidence x
assertion method
cross product
Similarity pathway
Sequence
database
Protein
sequence
of interest
Evidence
term
…researcher or computer
performs search
Resulting
alignment
with match
protein
Interpretation is made and annotation is
made
“Protein 1 & 2 look same, so protein 1 has
same function as protein 2…”
Assertion
method
The
assertion
Store in sequence repository
Evidence x
assertion method
cross product
Same evidence,
but we know who
or what did the
asserting…
The overall similarity annotation flow
Pure evidence term
Pure assertion
method term
Evidence x
assertion method
cross product
CONCLUDING
REMARKS
129
130
The big
picture: an
example
pipeline
DNA
Sequence
(assembly,
masking)
Predicte
d protein
coding
genes
Gene
Prediction
Automated start
site and gene
overlap
correction
RNA finding:
tRNAScan,
RNAMMER,
homology searches
MySQL database
using the Chado
schema
Predicted RNA
Genes
Genome
viewer/edit
or
translation
Flat files of
annotation
information
Searches:
Pairwise BER searches
against UniRef100
HMM searches against
Pfam and TIGRfam
Motif searches with
LipoP, THMHH,
PROSITE
NCBI COGs
Prium profiles
Automatic Annotation
using the evidence
hierarchy of Pfunc
131
Some concluding themes…
• The best annotation comes from looking at multiple
•
•
•
•
sources of evidence
It is important to track and check the evidence used in an
annotation
Do not assume the annotation you see on a protein is
correct unless it comes from a trusted source
Always err on the side of under-annotating rather than
over-annotating
Consider using UniProt (UniRef) for searches, not NCBI
nr, simply for the depth of information it provides.