Computational Analysis Predicts Hundreds of Coding lncRNAs in Zebrafish

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) regulate a variety of fundamental life processes such as development, physiology, metabolism and circadian rhythmicity. RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) technology has facilitated the sequencing of the whole transcriptome, thereby capturing and quantifying the dynamism of transcriptome-wide RNA expression profiles. However, much remains unrevealed in the huge noncoding RNA datasets that require further bioinformatic analysis. In this study, we applied six bioinformatic tools to investigate coding potentials of approximately 21,000 lncRNAs. A total of 313 lncRNAs are predicted to be coded by all the six tools. Our findings provide insights into the regulatory roles of lncRNAs and set the stage for the functional investigation of these lncRNAs and their encoded micropeptides. ABSTRACT: Recent studies have demonstrated that numerous long noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs having more than 200 nucleotide base pairs (lncRNAs)) actually encode functional micropeptides, which likely represents the next regulatory biology frontier. Thus, identification of coding lncRNAs from ever-increasing lncRNA databases would be a bioinformatic challenge. Here we employed the Coding Potential Alignment Tool (CPAT), Coding Potential Calculator 2 (CPC2), LGC web server, Coding-Non-Coding Identifying Tool (CNIT), RNAsamba, and MicroPeptide identification tool (MiPepid) to analyze approximately 21,000 zebrafish lncRNAs and computationally to identify 2730–6676 zebrafish lncRNAs with high coding potentials, including 313 coding lncRNAs predicted by all the six bioinformatic tools. We also compared the sensitivity and specificity of these six bioinformatic tools for identifying lncRNAs with coding potentials and summarized their strengths and weaknesses. These predicted zebrafish coding lncRNAs set the stage for further experimental studies.