6mA-Finder: a novel online tool for predicting DNA N6-methyladenine sites in genomes

Motivation: DNA N6-methyladenine (6mA) has recently been found as an essential epigenetic modification, playing its roles in a variety of cellular processes. The abnormal status of DNA 6mA modification has been reported in cancer and other disease. The annotation of 6mA marks in genome is the first crucial step to explore the underlying molecular mechanisms including its regulatory roles. Results: We present a novel online DNA 6mA site tool, 6mA-Finder, by incorporating seven sequence-derived information and three physicochemical-based features through recursive feature elimination strategy. Our multiple cross-validations indicate the promising accuracy and robustness of our model. 6mA-Finder outperforms its peer tools in general and species-specific 6mA site prediction, suggesting it can provide a useful resource for further experimental investigation of DNA 6mA modification.