PyMut: A Web Tool for Overlapping Gene Loss-of-Function Mutation Design

IEEE/ACM Trans Comput Biol Bioinform. 2018 Jul-Aug;15(4):1107-1110. doi: 10.1109/TCBB.2015.2505290. Epub 2015 Dec 3.

Abstract

Loss-of-function study is an effective approach to research gene functions. However, currently most of such studies have ignored an important problem (in this paper, we call it "off-target" problem), that is, if the target gene is an overlapping gene (A gene whose expressible nucleotides overlaps with that of another one), loss-of-function mutation by deleting the complete open reading frame (ORF) may also cause the gene it overlaps lose function, resulting a phenotype which may be rather different from that of single gene deletion. Therefore, when doing such studies, the loss-of-function mutations should be carefully designed to guarantee only the function of the target gene will be abolished. In this paper, we present PyMut, an easy-to-use web tool for biologists to design such mutations. To the best of our knowledge, PyMut is the first tool that aims to solve the "off-target" problem regarding the overlapping genes. Our web server is freely available at http://www.bioinfo.tsinghua.edu.cn/∼liuke/PyMut/index.html.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Genes, Fungal / genetics
  • Genomics / methods*
  • Internet*
  • Loss of Function Mutation / genetics*
  • Software*
  • Synthetic Biology / methods*
  • Yeasts / drug effects