Discovering multiple transcripts of human hepatocytes using massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS).
BACKGROUND
The liver is the largest human internal organ--it is composed of multiple cell types and plays a vital role in fulfilling the body's metabolic needs and maintaining homeostasis. Of these cell types the hepatocytes, which account for three-quarters of the liver's volume, perform its main functions. To discover the molecular basis of hepatocyte function, we employed Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS) to determine the transcriptomic profile of adult human hepatocytes obtained by laser capture microdissection (LCM).


RESULTS
10,279 UniGene clusters, representing 7,475 known genes, were detected in human hepatocytes. In addition, 1,819 unique MPSS signatures matching the antisense strand of 1,605 non-redundant UniGene clusters (such as APOC1, APOC2, APOB and APOH) were highly expressed in hepatocytes.


CONCLUSIONS
Apart from a large number of protein-coding genes, some of the antisense transcripts expressed in hepatocytes could play important roles in transcriptional interference via a cis-/trans-regulation mechanism. Our result provided a comprehensively transcriptomic atlas of human hepatocytes using MPSS technique, which could be served as an available resource for an in-depth understanding of human liver biology and diseases.
Huang
Jian
J
Department of Chemistry of Fudan University & Shanghai-Ministry Key Laboratory of Disease and Health Genomics, Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai, China. huangj@chgc.sh.cn <huangj@chgc.sh.cn>
Hao
Pei
P
Zhang
Yun-Li
YL
Deng
Fu-Xing
FX
Deng
Qing
Q
Hong
Yi
Y
Wang
Xiao-Wo
XW
Wang
Yun
Y
Li
Ting-Ting
TT
Zhang
Xue-Gong
XG
Li
Yi-Xue
YX
Yang
Peng-Yuan
PY
Wang
Hong-Yang
HY
Han
Ze-Guang
ZG
D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015723:Gene Library; D005821:Genetic Techniques; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D022781:Hepatocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism; D008957:Models, Genetic; D015233:Models, Statistical; D005810:Multigene Family; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism
D012333:RNA, Messenger