研究期間：10108~10207;RNA molecules are involved in numerous biological processes, ranging from gene regulation to protein synthesis. Researching into the functional RNA motifs can obtain useful information for deciphering RNA regulatory mechanisms. Various databases and web servers have accumulated functional RNA motifs during the last few decades, and several approaches have been developed for computational analysis of functional RNA motifs against RNA sequences. However, there is lack of a system integrating these data sources and analytical approaches for comprehensive analysis of functional RNA motifs against RNA sequences. Therefore, we propose an integrated web-based system, fRNAfinder, to facilitate user conveniently and comprehensively analyzing functional RNA motifs against RNA sequences. Though our easy-to-use web server, user can conveniently identify homologs of various known functional RNA motifs against an input RNA sequence, discover conserved RNA motifs against input RNA sequences, and search user-specified RNA motif against numerous RNA sequence databases. Various analytical approaches and data sources were incorporated into fRNAfinder. User can conveniently use these programs without having to download the code and get the programs to run. In addition, three novel approaches, RiboSW, RNALogo and RNAMST, were developed and incorporated to enhance ability of fRNAfinder. RiboSW can efficiently and conveniently identify riboswitches within RNA sequences. RNALogo provides a new graphical representation of the pattern in structural RNA motifs. RNAMST can efficiently and flexibly search user-specified RNA motif against RNA databases. The predictive results and related information are presented with good graphical visualization on fRNAfinder web page. Thus, we suggest that the fRNAfinder is a useful web server which facilitates user conveniently and comprehensively analyzing functional RNA motifs against RNA sequences.
