LncPlankton V1.0: a comprehensive collection of plankton long non-coding RNAs

Abstract

Long considered as transcriptional noise, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as central, regulatory molecules in a multitude of eukaryotic species, from plants to animals to fungi. Yet, our knowledge about the occurrence of these molecules in the marine environment, namely in planktonic protists, is still elusive. To fill this gap of knowledge we developed LncPlankton v1.0, which is the first comprehensive database of marine plankton lncRNAs. By integrating the predictions derived from ten distinctive coding potential prediction tools in a majority voting setting, we identified 2,210,359 lncRNAs distributed across 414 marine plankton species from over nine different phyla. A user-friendly, open-access web interface for the exploration of the database was implemented (https://www.lncplankton.bio.ens.psl.eu/). We believe LncPlankton v1.0 will serve as a rich resource for studies of lncRNAs that will contribute to small- and large-scale analyses in a wide range of marine plankton species and allow comparative analysis well beyond the marine environment.