The discovery of the RNA editing process in a wide range of organisms has challenged the classical view of a co-linear flow of genetic information from DNA via RNA to proteins, commonly referred to as the "central dogma" of molecular biology. RNA editing was initially described in trypanosomes where modifies different mRNAs by the deletion and/or insertion of uridines in specific positions. Then, it has been also discovered in various organisms and generally classified in "insertion/deletion editing" (which involves the insertion or deletion of specific nucleotides) or "substitution editing" (which involves the change of a specific nucleotide). To date, different RNA editing types have been identified. Although evolutionary unrelated, they occurr in the nucleus as well as in organelles of different organisms (few events have also been described in viruses).

In particular, the RNA editing process has been extensively studied in organelles and numerous events have been described in literature as well as in primary databases such as GenBank. However, primary databases contain a lot of errors and do not provide an ad hoc field to correctly catalogue post-transcriptional alterations due to RNA editing. In order to fill this gap and provide a comprehensive overview of the RNA editing phenomenon in organelles, we developed REDIdb, a specialized database where editing events are annotated in their gene context. Simple and advanced queries are admitted as well as unique comparative services through Blast and ClustalW programs.
REDIdb has been developed in a collaborative effort involving the University of Calabria (Italy), the University of Bari (Italy) and the University of Ulm (Germany).

Citation:

If you use REDIdb in your research, please cite:

Picardi E, Regina TM, Brennicke A and Quagliariello C
REDIdb: the RNA editing database.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2007; 35(Database issue):D173-7

Picardi E, Regina TM, Verbitskiy D, Brennicke A and Quagliariello C
REDIdb: an upgraded bioinformatics resource for organellar RNA editing sites.
Mitochondrion. 2011; 11(2):360-5