近期，國(guó)際期刊Bioinformatics上發(fā)表了中國(guó)科學(xué)院北京基因組研究所胡松年研究員,、宋述慧副研究員和生物信息平臺(tái)負(fù)責(zé)人趙文明等的研究成果"wapRNA: a web-based application for the processing of RNA sequences",，相關(guān)研究人員共同組織構(gòu)建的RNA在線處理平臺(tái)“wapRNA”成功上線（網(wǎng)站鏈接：http://waprna.big.ac.cn）。
RNA作為三個(gè)主要的生物大分子之一，是了解生物生長(zhǎng),、發(fā)育,、疾病等重要生命過(guò)程的關(guān)鍵物質(zhì)。RNA主要分為兩類,，一類是messenger RNA（mRNA）,，利用自身攜帶的遺傳信息來(lái)指導(dǎo)蛋白質(zhì)的合成；另一類則是通過(guò)催化生物反應(yīng),、控制基因表達(dá),、影響染色體結(jié)構(gòu)等來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)自己的功能，這類RNA中研究比較深入和廣泛的是microRNA（miRNA）,，它通過(guò)與mRNA相結(jié)合抑制或者降解靶mRNA來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)轉(zhuǎn)錄后調(diào)控,。
隨著基因組測(cè)序技術(shù)的飛速發(fā)展，越來(lái)越多的科學(xué)家想通過(guò)研究RNA分子（mRNA和miRNA）的表達(dá)變化來(lái)探索生物學(xué)問(wèn)題,、揭示生命過(guò)程和了解疾病發(fā)生等,。然而，由第二代測(cè)序技術(shù)產(chǎn)出的海量數(shù)據(jù)具有更高的軟硬件要求,，比如大型計(jì)算機(jī),、海量存儲(chǔ)、專業(yè)的計(jì)算機(jī)維護(hù)人員,、適應(yīng)新數(shù)據(jù)要求的數(shù)據(jù)處理軟件,、專門的數(shù)據(jù)分析人員等，這給傳統(tǒng)的生物科學(xué)家?guī)?lái)了新的機(jī)遇和挑戰(zhàn),。
為了解決傳統(tǒng)科學(xué)家在海量數(shù)據(jù)處理方面面臨的問(wèn)題,，基因組所科研人員針對(duì)不同的第二代測(cè)序技術(shù)（主要有SOLiD和Solexa）和不同的研究對(duì)象（mRNA和miRNA），開(kāi)發(fā)了基于網(wǎng)站的RNA在線處理平臺(tái)wapRNA,。該平臺(tái)提供了一套完整的工具,，可以使傳統(tǒng)科學(xué)家通過(guò)在網(wǎng)站上簡(jiǎn)單的選擇來(lái)完成從RNA原始數(shù)據(jù)（rawdata）處理到獲得最終結(jié)果等一系列數(shù)據(jù)處理過(guò)程，同時(shí)還提供了可供用戶下載的每一步數(shù)據(jù)處理過(guò)程結(jié)果及統(tǒng)計(jì)圖表信息,。
此外,，研發(fā)人員還集成了一些常用的功能分析模塊，比如基因差異表達(dá)分析（DEGseq）,、代謝通路分析（KEGG）,、Gene Ontology分析（Go）和miRNA靶基因預(yù)測(cè)（Target prediction）等，以及可以在本地執(zhí)行的程序包,，可以方便地在本地計(jì)算機(jī)上安裝使用,。（生物谷bioon.com）
doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btr504
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wapRNA: a web-based application for the processing of RNA sequences
Wenming Zhao1, Wanfei Liu12, Dongmei Tian1, Bixia Tang1, Yanqing Wang1, Caixia Yu1, Rujiao Li1, Yunchao Ling1,2, Jiayan Wu1, Shuhui Song1,* and Songnian Hu1,*
Summary: mRNA/miRNA-seq technology is becoming the leading technology to globally profile gene expression and elucidate the transcriptional regulation mechanisms in living cells. Although there are many tools available for analyzing RNA-seq data, few of them are available as easy accessible online web tools for processing both mRNA and miRNA data for the RNA-seq based user community. As such, we have developed a comprehensive web application tool for processing mRNA-seq and miRNA-seq data. Our web tool wapRNA includes four different modules: mRNA-seq and miRNA-seq sequenced from SOLiD or Solexa platform and all the modules were tested on previously published experimental data. We accept raw sequence data with an optional reads filter, followed by mapping and gene annotation or miRNA prediction. wapRNA also integrates downstream functional analyses such as Gene Ontology, KEGG pathway, miRNA targets prediction and comparison of gene's or miRNA's different expression in different samples. Moreover, we provide the executable packages for installation on user's local server.
