EVLncRNAs 2.0: an updated database of manually curated functional long non-coding RNAs validated by low-throughput experiments

Abstract

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important functional roles in many diverse biological processes. However, not all expressed lncRNAs are functional. Thus, it is necessary to manually collect all experimentally validated functional lncRNAs (EVlncRNA) with their sequences, structures, and functions annotated in a central database. The first release of such a database (EVLncRNAs) was made using the literature prior to 1 May 2016. Since then (till 15 May 2020), 19 245 articles related to lncRNAs have been published. In EVLncRNAs 2.0, these articles were manually examined for a major expansion of the data collected. Specifically, the number of annotated EVlncRNAs, associated diseases, lncRNA-disease associations, and interaction records were increased by 260%, 320%, 484% and 537%, respectively. Moreover, the database has added several new categories: 8 lncRNA structures, 33 exosomal lncRNAs, 188 circular RNAs, and 1079 drug-resistant, chemoresistant, and stress-resistant lncRNAs. All records have checked against known retraction and fake articles. This release also comes with a highly interactive visual interaction network that facilitates users to track the underlying relations among lncRNAs, miRNAs, proteins, genes and other functional elements. Furthermore, it provides links to four new bioinformatics tools with improved data browsing and searching functionality. EVLncRNAs 2.0 is freely available at https://www.sdklab-biophysics-dzu.net/EVLncRNAs2/.