YHMI: a web tool to identify histone modifications and histone/chromatin regulators from a gene list in yeast

Database (Oxford). 2018 Jan 1:2018:bay116. doi: 10.1093/database/bay116.

Abstract

Post-translational modifications of histones (e.g. acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation and ubiquitination) play crucial roles in regulating gene expression by altering chromatin structures and creating docking sites for histone/chromatin regulators. However, the combination patterns of histone modifications, regulatory proteins and their corresponding target genes remain incompletely understood. Therefore, it is advantageous to have a tool for the enrichment/depletion analysis of histone modifications and histone/chromatin regulators from a gene list. Many ChIP-chip/ChIP-seq datasets of histone modifications and histone/chromatin regulators in yeast can be found in the literature. Knowing the needs and having the data motivate us to develop a web tool, called Yeast Histone Modifications Identifier (YHMI), which can identify the enriched/depleted histone modifications and the enriched histone/chromatin regulators from a list of yeast genes. Both tables and figures are provided to visualize the identification results. Finally, the high-quality and biological insight of the identification results are demonstrated by two case studies. We believe that YHMI is a valuable tool for yeast biologists to do epigenetics research.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chromatin / metabolism*
  • Genes, Fungal*
  • Histones / metabolism*
  • Internet*
  • Open Reading Frames / genetics
  • Promoter Regions, Genetic / genetics
  • Protein Processing, Post-Translational / genetics*
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae / genetics*
  • Software*
  • User-Computer Interface

Substances

  • Chromatin
  • Histones