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Editor – Barbara Kramarz

Congratulations to Ruth on herÌýfirst anniversary as Professorial Research Fellow!

This time last year Dr Ruth Lovering wasÌýÌýto Professorial Research Fellow. TheÌýpromotion was aÌýrecognition of over aÌýdecade of Ruth’s achievements inÌýFunctional Gene Annotation. Since then Ruth has continued to excel inÌýcurationof published knowledge about human proteins and miRNAs, and has continued to share her skills and knowledge with Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ students and researchers while teaching anÌýMScÌýmodule and runningÌýBioinformatics ResourcesÌýworkshops. Congratulations, Ruth!

New ARUK-UCL Gene Ontology annotation milestone reached

We are very pleased toÌýÌýthat last summer theÌýÌýof GO annotations, contributed through theÌýARUK-Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ initiatives and associated with neurological pathways impaired in Alzheimer’s disease, reached 8181 annotations for 1281 gene productsÌý(QuickGO, EBI statistics: 31^stAugust 2019). These numbers are aÌýresult ofÌýourÌýongoing and previous annotation initiatives, specifically theÌýblood-brain barrier annotation project, annotation of proteins interacting with amyloid-beta and tau, annotation of proteins involved in microglial processes in dementia, as well as annotation of microRNAs that regulate theÌýexpression of these Alzheimer’s disease-related proteins. We thankÌýÌýfor their continuous support!Ìý

Blood-brain barrier annotation progress

Mila and Barbara have begun GO annotation of, respectively, endothelial connective junctions in theÌýbrain and proteins involved in transport across theÌýblood-brain barrier (BBB), reviewed byÌý. TheÌýlists of UniProtKB identifiers, which Mila and Barbara have identified for theÌýreviewed proteins, can be viewed in theÌýmost recent accordion sections on our ARUK-funded GO annotationÌýwebpage. To date, Mila has captured biological information about ten endothelial junction proteins listed, resulting in 145 GO annotations; whereas, Barbara has so far contributed 91 GO annotations for eleven proteins from theÌýBBB transport list.Ìý

Congratulations and farewell to Shirin!

Last January weÌýÌýto our groupÌýÌýwho has been working on her MSc GO annotation project with us. Shirin has now completed theÌýannotation of microRNAs targeting theÌýamyloid-beta receptors, reviewed byÌý, which we annotated previously ().Ìý

We wish Shirin every success in her future career!

Promoting our contribution to theÌýGene Ontology resource

Ruth’s abstract has been selected for both oral and poster presentations at theÌýÌýat Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK, this month. We thank theÌýorganisers for this opportunity to introduce the GO resource and our microRNA biocuration work.Ìý

• Please attendÌýRuth’s talk atÌý;

• Please come to seeÌýRuth’s poster S17 17:45-19:15 on Monday 9th September.

Barbara has been invited to give presentations about GO, aiming to introduce theÌýresource and explain how biological data curation, and our work specifically, can help to improve theÌýanalyses andÌýinterpretation of large datasets. BarbaraÌýÌýatÌýAnti-Doping Lab Qatar () on 29^thAugust 2019, and will be presenting atÌýQatar University () on 5^thSeptember 2019 at 1-2pm.

Meetings attended

In June Ruth presented aÌýposter describing our annotation of dementia-related microRNAs, at theÌýUCL Neuroscience Symposium and then gave an invited presentation entitled ‘What is the biological knowledge represented in theÌýGene Ontology and how does it contribute to the Knowledge Commons’ at ‘TheÌýRoad to a Well-constructed Knowledge Commons for the Life Sciences’ meeting in Trondheim, Norway.

Recent Publications

Koopmans F, van Nierop P, … Kramarz B, … Lovering RC, … Foulger RE, … Thomas PD, Smit AB, Verhage M.ÌýSynGO: An Evidence-Based, Expert-Curated Knowledge Base for the Synapse. Neuron (Cell Press). 2019 Jun 3. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2019.05.002. PMID:.

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