title: Widespread occurrence of antisense transcription in the human genome.
abstract: An increasing number of eukaryotic genes are being found to have naturally occurring antisense transcripts. Here we study the extent of antisense transcription in the human genome by analyzing the public databases of expressed sequences using a set of computational tools designed to identify sense-antisense transcriptional units on opposite DNA strands of the same genomic locus. The resulting data set of 2,667 sense-antisense pairs was evaluated by microarrays containing strand-specific oligonucleotide probes derived from the region of overlap. Verification of specific cases by northern blot analysis with strand-specific riboprobes proved transcription from both DNA strands. We conclude that > or =60% of this data set, or approximately 1,600 predicted sense-antisense transcriptional units, are transcribed from both DNA strands. This indicates that the occurrence of antisense transcription, usually regarded as infrequent, is a very common phenomenon in the human genome. Therefore, antisense modulation of gene expression in human cells may be a common regulatory mechanism.
authors.affiliation: Compugen Ltd., 72 Pinchas Rosen St., Tel Aviv 69512, Israel.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yelin
authors.forename: Dvir
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dahary
authors.forename: Rotem
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sorek
authors.forename: Erez Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Levanon
authors.forename: Orly
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: Avi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shoshan
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Diber
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Biton
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tamir
authors.forename: Rami
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Khosravi
authors.forename: Sergey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nemzer
authors.forename: Elhanan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pinner
authors.forename: Shira
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Walach
authors.forename: Jeanne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: Kinneret
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Savitsky
authors.forename: Galit
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rotman
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001483:Base Sequence; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016373:DNA, Antisense / Q000235:genetics*; D003628:Database Management Systems; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods; D016372:RNA, Antisense / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment / Q000379:methods*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods; D014158:Transcription, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D016373:DNA, Antisense; D016372:RNA, Antisense