RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 TelNet - a database for human and yeast genes involved in telomere maintenance JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 130153 DO 10.1101/130153 A1 Delia M. Braun A1 Inn Chung A1 Nick Kepper A1 Karsten Rippe YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/27/130153.abstract AB Telomeres, the ends of linear chromosomes, consist of repetitive DNA sequences bound by the shelterin protein complex. Cancer cells need to extend these telomere repeats for an unlimited proliferation potential, either by reactivating the reverse transcriptase telomerase or by using the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway. The different telomere maintenance (TM) mechanisms are likely to involve hundreds of genes but their telomere repeat length related activities are only partly understood. Currently, a database that integrates information on TM relevant genes is missing. To provide a reference for studies that dissect TM features, we here introduce the TelNet database available via the http://www.cancertelsys.org/telnetlink. It offers a comprehensive compilation of more than 1,900 human and over 1,100 yeast genes linked to telomere maintenance. The genes compiled in TelNet were annotated in terms of TM mechanism (telomerase or ALT), TM specific functions, validation of significance for TM including a calculated TelNet significance score, homology assignment between different organisms, and information from the literature. Different search modes to display the results are available that display TM information on a gene card, via a gene list view or as a statistics page of a TM pathway analysis. Thus, TelNet can be integrated into the annotation of genes identified from bioinformatic analysis pipelines to determine possible connections with TM networks. We anticipate that TelNet will be a helpful resource for researchers that study TM processes.Database URL http://www.cancertelsys.org/telnet