IRESite--a tool for the examination of viral and cellular internal ribosome entry sites

Nucleic Acids Res. 2010 Jan;38(Database issue):D131-6. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkp981. Epub 2009 Nov 16.

Abstract

The IRESite (http://www.iresite.org) presents carefully curated experimental evidence of many eukaryotic viral and cellular internal ribosome entry site (IRES) regions. At the time of submission, IRESite stored >600 records. The IRESite gradually evolved into a robust tool providing (i) biologically meaningful information regarding the IRESs and their experimental background (including annotation of IRES secondary structures and IRES trans-acting factors) as well as (ii) thorough concluding remarks to stored database entries and regularly updated evaluation of the reported IRES function. A substantial portion of the IRESite data results purely from in-house bioinformatic analyses of currently available sequences, in silico attempts to repeat published cloning experiments, DNA sequencing and restriction endonuclease verification of received plasmid DNA. We also present a newly implemented tool for displaying RNA secondary structures and for searching through the structures currently stored in the database. The supplementary material contains an updated list of reported IRESs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Computational Biology / trends
  • Databases, Genetic*
  • Databases, Nucleic Acid*
  • Genome, Viral
  • Humans
  • Information Storage and Retrieval / methods
  • Internet
  • Nucleic Acid Conformation
  • Peptide Chain Initiation, Translational / genetics
  • Plasmids / metabolism
  • RNA, Viral / genetics*
  • Ribosomes / genetics*
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Software

Substances

  • RNA, Viral