CatRAPID, A GUIDE TO UNDERSTAND THE ROLE OF NON-CODING RNAs

A team headed by Gian Gaetano Tartaglia, group leader of the Gene Function and Evolution group at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, presents catRAPID, a new method for a better understanding of gene regulation networks.
 
The group presented the catRAPID algorithm in the last issue of Nature Methods. The algorithm was developed to investigate the role of long non-coding RNAs in post-transcriptional regulatory networks.
 
We know that only 1% of our RNA encodes for proteins. Long non-coding RNAs represent a large number of molecules whose functions are still unknown. The group Gene Function and Evolution at CRG designed the catRAPID method to perform large-scale predictions of protein-RNA associations. The algorithm evaluates the interaction propensities between non-coding RNA and proteins using relevant physicochemical properties.
 
The researchers validated their predictions using a large quantity of in vitro associations between proteins and non-coding RNAs, such as human genes involved in biological processes like embryogenesis, skin differentiation and breast cancer. The algorithm estimates the binding propensities of molecules and allows the visualisation of their binding areas. The catRAPID tool will be used to design new experiments to investigate the role of non-coding RNAs in protein regulation.
 
catRAPID is freely available here.

 
Reference: Matteo Bellucci, Federico Agostini, Marianela Masin & Gian Gaetano Tartaglia. “Predicting protein associations with long noncoding RNAs” Nature Methods 2011 June Vol. 8 Nº6.