title: A common set of distinct features that characterize noncoding RNAs across multiple species.
abstract: To find signature features shared by various ncRNA sub-types and characterize novel ncRNAs, we have developed a method, RNAfeature, to investigate >600 sets of genomic and epigenomic data with various evolutionary and biophysical scores. RNAfeature utilizes a fine-tuned intra-species wrapper algorithm that is followed by a novel feature selection strategy across species. It considers long distance effect of certain features (e.g. histone modification at the promoter region). We finally narrow down on 10 informative features (including sequences, structures, expression profiles and epigenetic signals). These features are complementary to each other and as a whole can accurately distinguish canonical ncRNAs from CDSs and UTRs (accuracies: >92% in human, mouse, worm and fly). Moreover, the feature pattern is conserved across multiple species. For instance, the supervised 10-feature model derived from animal species can predict ncRNAs in Arabidopsis (accuracy: 82%). Subsequently, we integrate the 10 features to define a set of noncoding potential scores, which can identify, evaluate and characterize novel noncoding RNAs. The score covers all transcribed regions (including unconserved ncRNAs), without requiring assembly of the full-length transcripts. Importantly, the noncoding potential allows us to identify and characterize potential functional domains with feature patterns similar to canonical ncRNAs (e.g. tRNA, snRNA, miRNA, etc) on ∼70% of human long ncRNAs (lncRNAs).
authors.affiliation: PKU-Tsinghua-NIBS Graduate Program, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Di
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Mingxuan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kai
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Cheng T
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yunjiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Xihao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Kevin Y
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Yip
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Center for Systems Biology, The University of Texas, Dallas 800 West Campbell Road, RL11 Richardson, TX 75080-3021, USA MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Bioinformatics Division, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, TNLIST and School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Michael Q
authors.initials: MQ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology and Center for Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China zhilu@tsinghua.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhi John
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding / Q000737:chemistry; D022661:RNA, Untranslated / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D062085:RNA, Long Noncoding; D022661:RNA, Untranslated