title: Discovering multiple transcripts of human hepatocytes using massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS).
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: 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>
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Pei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.forename: Yun-Li
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Fu-Xing
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Xiao-Wo
authors.initials: XW
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ting-Ting
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Xue-Gong
authors.initials: XG
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yi-Xue
authors.initials: YX
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Peng-Yuan
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hong-Yang
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ze-Guang
authors.initials: ZG
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger