title: ProSAS: a database for analyzing alternative splicing in the context of protein structures.
abstract: Alternative splicing is known to be one of the major sources for functional diversity in higher eukaryotes. Several splicing isoforms have been characterized in the literature that play important roles in cellular processes like apoptosis or signal transduction pathways. Splicing events can often be detected on the mRNA level by large-scale cDNA or EST experiments and such data is collected and annotated in several databases. Nevertheless, the effects of splicing on the structure of a protein are largely unknown. The ProSAS (Protein Structure and Alternative Splicing) database fills this gap and provides a unified resource for analyzing effects of alternative splicing events in the context of protein structures. ProSAS comprehensively annotates and models protein structures for several Ensembl genomes as well as SwissProt entries harbouring splicing events. Alternative isoforms annotated in Ensembl or SwissProt can be analyzed on the protein structure and protein function level using an intuitive user interface that provides several features and tools for a structure-based analysis of alternative splicing events. The ProSAS database is freely accessible at http://www.bio.ifi.lmu.de/ProSAS.
authors.affiliation: Practical Informatics and Bioinformatics Group, Department of Informatics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Amalienstrasse 17, D-80333 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Birzele
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Küffner
authors.forename: Franziska
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Meier
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Oefinger
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Potthast
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zimmer
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D030562:Databases, Protein; D020407:Internet; D011487:Protein Conformation; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D014584:User-Computer Interface
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms