Greglist help

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What is Greglist?
Greglist is a database listing potentially G-quadruplex regulated genes, that is, genes whose promoter regions have G-quadruplex forming motifs.

What is G-quadruplex and how was it found?
The double helix structure is a conformation that genomic DNA usually assumes; however, under certain conditions, guanine-rich DNA sequences can form a special structure called G-quadruplex (or G4). The discovery of G-quadruplex can be traced back to G-quartets, planar arrays of 4 guanines held together by hydrogen bonds, which were found by Davies and coworkers about 5 decades ago (Gellert et al. 1962). Later Sen and Gilbert discovered G-quadruplex, a four-stranded structure that is stabilized by G-quartets (Sen and Gilbert 1988). As an example, readers may visit the Protein Data Bank to view the 3-dimentional structure of a G-quadruplex (PDB code: 1XAV), which is formed in the promoter regions of the c-MYC gene (Ambrus et al. 2005). Also visit this link for a more detailed description about this topic.

What is the function of G-quadruplexes?
This part of the text was deleted, because a more detailed explanation can be found at this link.

What is the G-quadruplex motif?
This part of the text was deleted, because a more detailed explanation can be found at this link.

How many G-quadruplex forming motifs are in the human genome?
This part of the text was deleted, because a more detailed explanation can be found at this link.

How to search for your gene of interest in Greglist?
In Greglist, users can perform searches by inputting gene accession numbers or names at the homepage, and then click ¡®Go¡¯. To perform more detailed searches, users can click ¡®Search¡¯, and then in the new page, more detailed searching options are provided. To further facilitate searching the gene of interest, we installed Blast program locally. So users can input the coding sequence of their gene of interest and perform Blast searches against Greglist to find homologous ones. 

How to interpret the results if your gene of interest is found in Greglist?
The presence of a GQM only suggests the potential of a sequence to form G-quadruplex. In addition, the G-quadruplex structure is a dynamic structure that is formed upon denaturation of the DNA duplex. Therefore caution must be taken to interpret the data in Greglist. In other words, gene records in Greglist provide a starting point for further analysis of the potential G-quadruplex structure in these genes.