Computational models in genetics at BGRS\SB-2016: introductory note

This special issue continues the series of BioMed Central special post-conference journal issues (BMC Genetics, BMC Plant biology, BMC Genomics, BMC Evolutionary biology, BMC Systems Biology). All these issues collate the papers presented at BGRS\SB-2016, 10th International Conference “Bioinformatics of Genome Regulation and Structure\Systems Biology” which took place at August 29 September 2, 2016 in Novosibirsk, Russia. The BGRS conference series started in 1998 in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok (http://conf.bionet.nsc.ru/bgrssb2016/ archive/) Since then BGRS/SB was been organized biannually by the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ICG SB RAS). Across all these years, the Conference was chaired by Prof. Nikolay A. Kolchanov (ICG SB RAS, Russia) and Prof. Ralf Hofestädt (Bielefeld University, Germany). In 2016, the multi-conference held parallel events and symposia on systems biology and biomedicine (SBioMed-2016) (http://conf.bionet.nsc.ru/ishg2016/en/), cognitive sciences (http://physiol.ru/csgb2016/), and mathematical modeling in biology (MM-HPC-BBB-2016) (http:// conf.bionet.nsc.ru/mm-hpc-bbb-2016/en/). Since 2014, the BGRS Program Committee has collaborated with BioMed Central on full-text thematic issues reflecting the main science achievements of the conference series in past years. Recently BioMed Central had published several special issues based on best materials presented at the conference in BMC Genetics [1] (http://bmcgenet.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-16-supplement-1), BMC Genomics (http://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/ articles/supplements/volume-15-supplement-12), BMC Evolutionary Biology (http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/ articles/supplements/volume-15-supplement-1), and BMC Systems biology (http://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/ articles/supplements/volume-9-supplement-2). Current issue of BMC Genetics represents latest breakthroughs in genetics discussed at the conference and includes applications of high-throughput sequencing and computational biology for genetics studies in humans and in laboratory animal models. At the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS – the host of the BGRS\SB-2016 multiconference these types of studies represent one of the most important research themes. Many of these works are done in frame of national and international collaborations, and involve young researchers working on their PhD Thesis projects. The paper by E.V.Ignatieva and colleagues [2] opens this special issue by endeavor into the functional annotation of genes regulating feeding behavior, which is a complex problem related to obesity and pre-disposition to the associated diseases. The authors proposed a computational approach to annotation by integrating various mined sources, including previously published original research and review articles, GWAS meta-analyses, and OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) data. A compendium comprising more than 500 human genes controlling food behavior is expected to be useful for pathology risk estimation and for design of new pharmacology approaches to treat human obesity. The work by Matveeva et al. considers regulatory single nucleotide polymorphisms (rSNPs) in the tumour suppressor APC gene. It was shown that both putative promoters of APC (1A and 1B) drive transcription in an in vitro reporter experiment, many SNPs are functionally relevant and allele G of rs79896135 may be associated with the predisposition to colorectal cancer [3]. The article by Kudryavtseva et al. highlights molecular mechanism of hexokinases function in tumorigenesis of human colorectal cancer and melanoma.