Greglist: a database listing potential G-quadruplex regulated genes

The double helix is a conformation that genomic DNA usually assumes; under certain conditions, however, guanine-rich DNA sequences can form a four-stranded structure, G-quadruplex, which is found to play a role in regulating gene expression. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that the G-quadruplex formed in the c-MYC promoter suppresses its transcriptional activity. Recent studies suggest that G-quadruplex motifs (GQMs) are enriched in human gene promoters. To facilitate the research of G-quadruplex, we have constructed Greglist, a database listing potentially G-quadruplex regulated genes. Greglist harbors genes that contain promoter GQMs from genomes of various species, including humans, mice, rats and chickens. Many important genes are found to contain previously unreported promoter GQMs, such as ATM, BAD, AKT1, LEPR, UCP1, APOE, DKK1, WT1, WEE1, WNT1 and CLOCK. Furthermore, we find that not only protein coding genes, 126 human microRNAs also contain promoter GQMs. Greglist therefore provides candidates for further studying G-quadruplex functions and is freely available at http://tubic.tju.edu.cn/greglist.