Innovations in -omics technologies have driven advances in biomedical research. However, integrating and analysing the large volumes of data generated from different high-throughput -omics technologies remain a significant challenge to basic and clinical scientists without bioinformatics skills or access to bioinformatics support. To address this demand, we have significantly updated our previous O-miner analytical suite, to incorporate several new features and data types to provide an efficient and easy-to-use Web tool for the automated analysis of data from '-omics' technologies. Created from a biologist's perspective, this tool allows for the automated analysis of large and complex transcriptomic, genomic and methylomic data sets, together with biological/clinical information, to identify significantly altered pathways and prioritize novel biomarkers/targets for biological validation. Our resource can be used to analyse both in-house data and the huge amount of publicly available information from array and sequencing platforms. Multiple data sets can be easily combined, allowing for meta-analyses. Here, we describe the analytical pipelines currently available in O-miner and present examples of use to demonstrate its utility and relevance in maximizing research output. O-miner Web server is free to use and is available at http://www.o-miner.org.

Broader functional annotation of known as well as putative genetic variations is a valuable mean for prioritizing targets in disease studies and large-scale genotyping projects. In this article, we present a practical guide to SNPnexus, a web-based tool that provides an aggregate set of functional annotations for genomic variation data by characterizing related consequences at the transcriptome/proteome levels with in-depth analysis of potential deleterious effects, inferring physical and cytogenetic mapping, reporting related HapMap data, finding overlaps with potential regulatory, structural as well as conserved elements and retrieving links with previously reported genetic disease studies. We focus on the SNPnexus query system, its annotation categories and the biological interpretation of results.

With advances in high-throughput techniques, the volume of data generated has resulted in the creation of a plethora of resources for the cancer research community. However, a key factor in the utility, sustainability and future use of a novel resource lies in its ability to allow for data sharing and to be interoperable with major international cancer research efforts. This article will introduce some of these efforts, the interoperable cancer data-mining resources and repositories, from a user-perspective. Some of the considerations to be addressed when building interoperable, sustainable cancer resources will be discussed with case studies-hoping this will prove useful for researchers designing their own cancer databases.

MOTIVATION: Design a new computational tool allowing scientists to functionally annotate newly discovered and public domain single nucleotide polymorphisms in order to help in prioritizing targets in further disease studies and large-scale genotyping projects. SUMMARY: SNPnexus database provides functional annotation for both novel and public SNPs. Possible effects on the transcriptome and proteome levels are characterized and reported from five major annotation systems providing the most extensive information on alternative splicing. Additional information on HapMap genotype and allele frequency, overlaps with potential regulatory elements or structural variations as well as related genetic diseases can be also retrieved. The SNPnexus database has a user-friendly web interface, providing single or batch query options using SNP identifiers from dbSNP as well as genomic location on clones, contigs or chromosomes. Therefore, SNPnexus is the only database currently providing a complete set of functional annotations of SNPs in public databases and newly detected from sequencing projects. Hence, we describe SNPnexus, provide details of the query options, the annotation categories as well as biological examples of use. AVAILABILITY: The SNPnexus database is freely available at http://www.snp-nexus.org.