FusionHub: A unified web platform for annotation and visualization of gene fusion events in human cancer

PLoS One. 2018 May 1;13(5):e0196588. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196588. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Gene fusion is a chromosomal rearrangement event which plays a significant role in cancer due to the oncogenic potential of the chimeric protein generated through fusions. At present many databases are available in public domain which provides detailed information about known gene fusion events and their functional role. Existing gene fusion detection tools, based on analysis of transcriptomics data usually report a large number of fusion genes as potential candidates, which could be either known or novel or false positives. Manual annotation of these putative genes is indeed time-consuming. We have developed a web platform FusionHub, which acts as integrated search engine interfacing various fusion gene databases and simplifies large scale annotation of fusion genes in a seamless way. In addition, FusionHub provides three ways of visualizing fusion events: circular view, domain architecture view and network view. Design of potential siRNA molecules through ensemble method is another utility integrated in FusionHub that could aid in siRNA-based targeted therapy. FusionHub is freely available at https://fusionhub.persistent.co.in.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Data Mining
  • Databases, Genetic
  • Gene Fusion*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Humans
  • Internet*
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation / methods*
  • Neoplasms / genetics*
  • RNA, Small Interfering / genetics
  • User-Computer Interface

Substances

  • RNA, Small Interfering

Grants and funding

All authors are employees of Persistent Systems. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors [PP, AJ and KA], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.