A strategy for finding regions of similarity in complete genome sequences

Mobilomics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains

BACKGROUND

Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs) are selfish DNA integrated in the genomes. Their detection is mainly based on consensus-like searches by scanning the investigated genome against the sequence of an already identified MGE. Mobilomics aims at discovering all the MGEs in a genome and understanding their dynamic behavior: The data for this kind of investigation can be provided by comparative genomics of closely related organisms. The amount of data thus involved requires a strong computational effort, which should be alleviated.

RESULTS

Our approach proposes to exploit the high similarity among homologous chromosomes of different strains of the same species, following a progressive comparative genomics philosophy. We introduce a software tool based on our new fast algorithm, called regender, which is able to identify the conserved regions between chromosomes. Our case study is represented by a unique recently available dataset of 39 different strains of S.cerevisiae, which regender is able to compare in few minutes. By exploring the non-conserved regions, where MGEs are mainly retrotransposons called Tys, and marking the candidate Tys based on their length, we are able to locate a priori and automatically all the already known Tys and map all the putative Tys in all the strains. The remaining putative mobile elements (PMEs) emerging from this intra-specific comparison are sharp markers of inter-specific evolution: indeed, many events of non-conservation among different yeast strains correspond to PMEs. A clustering based on the presence/absence of the candidate Tys in the strains suggests an evolutionary interconnection that is very similar to classic phylogenetic trees based on SNPs analysis, even though it is computed without using phylogenetic information.

CONCLUSIONS

The case study indicates that the proposed methodology brings two major advantages: (a) it does not require any template sequence for the wanted MGEs and (b) it can be applied to infer MGEs also for low coverage genomes with unresolved bases, where traditional approaches are largely ineffective.

Chromosome evolution with naked eye: palindromic context of the life origin

Based on the representation of the DNA sequence as a two-dimensional (2D) plane walk, we consider the problem of identification and comparison of functional and structural organizations of chromosomes of different organisms. According to the characteristic design of 2D walks we identify telomere sites, palindromes of various sizes and complexity, areas of ribosomal RNA, transposons, as well as diverse satellite sequences. As an interesting result of the application of the 2D walk method, a new duplicated gigantic palindrome in the X human chromosome is detected. A schematic mechanism leading to the formation of such a duplicated palindrome is proposed. Analysis of a large number of the different genomes shows that some chromosomes (or their fragments) of various species appear as imperfect gigantic palindromes, which are disintegrated by many inversions and the mutation drift on different scales. A spread occurrence of these types of sequences in the numerous chromosomes allows us to develop a new insight of some accepted points of the genome evolution in the prebiotic phase.

Repseek, a tool to retrieve approximate repeats from large DNA sequences

Chromosomes or other long DNA sequences contain many highly similar repeated sub-sequences. While there are efficient methods for detecting strict repeats or detecting already characterized repeats, there is no software available for detecting approximate repeats in large DNA sequences allowing for weighted substitutions and indels in a coherent statistical framework. Here, we present an implementation of a two-steps method (seed detection followed by their extension) that detects those approximate repeats. Our method is computationally efficient enough to handle large sequences and is flexible enough to account for influencing factors, such as sequence-composition biases both at the seed detection and alignment levels.

AVAILABILITY

http://wwwabi.snv.jussieu.fr/public/RepSeek/

PRECISE: software for prediction of cis-acting regulatory elements

The regulation of gene expression at the transcription initiation level is highly complex and requires the presence of multiple transcription factors. These transcription factors are often proteins or peptides that bind to the so-called cis-acting elements, which are present in the promoter regions and conserved among different species. In order to predict these cis-acting elements, a computer program called PRECISE (Prediction of REgulatory CIS-acting Elements) was developed. The power of the tool lies in its user-friendly interface and in the possibility of using empirical motif frequency tables to filter through the many discovered motifs. The tools to create the empirical motif frequency table (e.g., from a whole genome sequence) are included in the package. In the first case study, the upstream regions of all the genes in the Arabidopsis genome were used to create an empirical motif frequency table and a set of 64 upstream sequences of genes known to be involved in starch metabolism was subjected to analysis by PRECISE. The 20 motifs with the highest specificity in the selected set were analyzed in more detail. Of these 20 motifs, 15 showed a very high or complete homology to the sequences of known cis-acting elements. These cis-acting elements are regulated by light, auxin, and abscisic acid, and confer specific expression in sink organs such as leaves and seeds. All these factors have been shown to play an important role in starch biosynthesis. In the second case study, the upstream regions of 16 genes whose transcription is induced by gibberellins (GA) in Arabidopsis were analyzed with PRECISE and compared to the motifs present in the PLACE database. Among the most promising motifs found by PRECISE were 6 of the 17 known GA motifs. These results indicate the power of the PRECISE software package in the prediction of regulatory elements.

The mutated subsequence problem and locating conserved genes

MOTIVATION

For the purpose of locating conserved genes in a whole genome scale, this paper proposes a new structural optimization problem called the Mutated Subsequence Problem, which gives consideration to possible mutations between two species (in the form of reversals and transpositions) when comparing the genomes.

RESULTS

A practical algorithm called mutated subsequence algorithm (MSS) is devised to solve this optimization problem, and it has been evaluated using different pairs of human and mouse chromosomes, and different pairs of virus genomes of Baculoviridae. MSS is found to be effective and efficient; in particular, MSS can reveal >90% of the conserved genes of human and mouse that have been reported in the literature. When compared with existing softwares MUMmer and MaxMinCluster, MSS uncovers 14 and 7% more genes on average, respectively. Furthermore, this paper shows a hybrid approach to integrate MUMmer or MaxMinCluster with MSS, which has better performance and reliability.

Genome compartimentation by a hybrid chromosome model (HXM). Application to Saccharomyces cerevisae subtelomeres

The aim of this paper is to present a new approach, called 'Hybrid Chromosome Model' (HXM), which allows both the extraction of regions of similarity between two sequences, and the compartimentation of a set of DNA sequences. The principle of the method consists in compacting a set of sequences (split into fragments of fixed length) into a 'hybrid chromosome', which results from the stacking of the whole sequence fragments. We have illustrated our approach on the 32 subtelomeres of Saccharomyces cerevisae. The compartimentation of these chromosome extremities into common regions of similarity has been carried out. The approach HXM is a fast and efficient tool for mapping entire genomes and for extracting ancient duplications within or between genomes.

Study of intrachromosomal duplications among the eukaryote genomes

Complete eukaryote chromosomes were investigated for intrachromosomal duplications of nucleotide sequences. The analysis was performed by looking for nonexact repeats on two complete genomes, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Caenorhabditis elegans, and four partial ones, Drosophila melanogaster, Plasmodium falciparum, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Homo sapiens. Through this analysis, we show that all eukaryote chromosomes exhibit similar characteristics for their intrachromosomal repeats, suggesting similar dynamics: many direct repeats have their two copies physically close together, and these close direct repeats are more similar and shorter than the other repeats. On the contrary, there are almost no close inverted repeats. These results support a model for the dynamics of duplication. This model is based on a continuous genesis of tandem repeats and implies that most of the distant and inverted repeats originate from these tandem repeats by further chromosomal rearrangements (insertions, inversions, and deletions). Remnants of these predicted rearrangements have been brought out through fine analysis of the chromosome sequence. Despite these dynamics, shared by all eukaryotes, each genome exhibits its own style of intrachromosomal duplication: the density of repeated elements is similar in all chromosomes issued from the same genome, but is different between species. This density was further related to the relative rates of duplication, deletion, and mutation proper to each species. One should notice that the density of repeats in the X chromosome of C. elegans is much lower than in the autosomes of that organism, suggesting that the exchange between homologous chromosomes is important in the duplication process.

Analysis of intrachromosomal duplications in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a possible model for their origin

The complete genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was investigated for intrachromosomal duplications at the level of nucleotide sequences. The analysis was performed by looking for long approximate repeats (from 30 to 3,885 bp) present on each of the chromosomes. We show that direct and inverted repeats exhibit very different characteristics: the two copies of direct repeats are more similar and longer than those of inverted repeats. Furthermore, contrary to the inverted repeats, a large majority of direct repeats appear to be closely spaced. The distance (delta) between the two copies is generally smaller than 1 kb. Further analysis of these "close direct repeats" shows a negative correlation between delta and the percentage of identity between the two copies, and a positive correlation between delta and repeat length. Moreover, contrary to the other categories of repeats, close direct repeats are mostly located within coding sequences (CDSs). We propose two hypotheses in order to interpret these observations: first, the deletion/conversion rate is negatively correlated with delta; second, there exists an active duplication mechanism which continuously creates close direct repeats, the other intrachromosomal repeats being the result, by chromosomal rearrangements of these "primary repeats."