About

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs, predominantly active in the germ line. There, they limit the detrimental effect of transposons on the genome. They do so by forming a complex with Piwi proteins. The complex binds and then cleaves mRNA molecules of active transposons. The resulting mRNA fragments induce the production of more piRNAs, thus reinforcing the anti-trans-poson response in a feed-forward loop called the "ping-pong cycle".

A key question in ping-pong cycle research is identification of piRNAs which are amplified through the cycle. PingPongPro is a command-line tool for detecting ping-pong cycle activity in piRNA-Seq data.

PingPongPro was developed at the Institute of Molecular Biology gGmbH in Mainz.

Installation & Usage

Please download the latest release from the releases page to obtain pre-compiled binaries and the user manual, which includes detailed documentation of the installation routine, usage and the algorithm.