TelNet - a database for human and yeast genes involved in telomere maintenance

Abstract The ends of linear chromosomes, the telomeres, comprise repetitive DNA sequences that are protected by the shelterin protein complex. Cancer cells need to extend these telomere repeats for their unlimited proliferation, either by reactivating the reverse transcriptase telomerase or by using the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway. The different telomere maintenance (TM) mechanisms appear to involve hundreds of proteins 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 at http://www.cancertelsys.org/telnet/. It offers a comprehensive compilation of more than 2,000 human and over 1,100 yeast genes linked to telomere maintenance. These genes were annotated in terms of TM mechanism, associated specific functions and orthologous genes, a TM significance score and information from peer-reviewed literature. This TM information can be retrieved via different search and view modes and evaluated for a set of genes on a statistics page. With these features TelNet can be integrated into the annotation of genes identified from bioinformatics analysis pipelines to determine possible connections with TM networks as illustrated by an exemplary application. We anticipate that TelNet will be a helpful resource for researchers that study TM processes.