TeloBase

TeloBase provides a curated repository of computationally predicted and experimentally confirmed telomere DNA sequences across diverse species to support analysis of telomere motif diversity and evolutionary dynamics.

Key Features:

• Extensive Data Collection: Aggregates telomere sequence data from literature curation and analysis of publicly available next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets.
• Internal Taxonomy: Implements an internal taxonomy that leverages popular online taxonomic resources for filtering and taxon-aware analyses.
• Visualization Tools: Supports visualization of evolutionary dynamics using graphical representations including heat tree plots.
• Community Curation: Maintains a community-curation system that accepts submitted telomere sequences and subjects them to administrative review for database inclusion.
• Comparative Coverage: Focuses specifically on telomere motif diversity and complements existing resources such as the "Telomerase database" and the "Plant rDNA database".
• Demonstrated Utility: Has been used to identify a putative telomere motif (TTTATTAGGG)n in Chrysobalanaceae and to bioinformatically confirm motifs by analyzing template regions of telomerase RNAs.

Scientific Applications:

• Telomere biology: Supports investigation of telomere motif diversity and sequence composition across species.
• Evolutionary dynamics: Enables studies of telomere sequence evolution and motif turnover.
• Taxonomy and phylogenetics: Facilitates taxon-specific analyses and integration of telomere data into phylogenetic contexts.
• Molecular evolution and genome stability: Provides data for analyses relating telomere motifs to genetic diversity and genome stability mechanisms.

Methodology:

Data were collected via literature review and analysis of publicly available NGS datasets; taxonomy was assigned using online taxonomic resources; evolutionary visualizations were produced with heat tree plots; motif confirmation was performed by bioinformatic analysis of template regions of identified telomerase RNAs.