High-throughput quantification of splicing isoforms.
Most human messenger RNAs (mRNAs) are alternatively spliced and many exhibit disease-specific splicing patterns. However, the contribution of most splicing events to the development and maintenance of human diseases remains unclear. As the contribution of alternative splicing events to diagnosis and prognosis is becoming increasingly recognized, it becomes important to develop precise methods to quantify the abundance of these isoforms in clinical samples. Here we present a pipeline for real-time PCR annotation of splicing events (RASE) that allows accurate identification of a large number of splicing isoforms in human tissues. The RASE automatically designed specific primer pairs for 81% of all alternative splicing events in the NCBI build 36 database. Experimentally, the majority of the RASE designed primers resulted in isoform-specific amplification suitable for quantification in human cell lines or in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) RNA extract. Using this pipeline it is now possible to rapidly identify splicing isoform signatures in different types of human tissues or to validate complete sets of data generated by microarray expression profiling and deep sequencing techniques.
Brosseau
Jean-Philippe
JP
Universite de Sherbrooke, Departement de Microbiologie et d'Infectiologie Sherbrooke, Quebec J1H 5N4, Canada.
Lucier
Jean-François
JF
Lapointe
Elvy
E
Durand
Mathieu
M
Gendron
Daniel
D
Gervais-Bird
Julien
J
Tremblay
Karine
K
Perreault
Jean-Pierre
JP
Elela
Sherif Abou
SA
D017398:Alternative Splicing; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics*
D017931:DNA Primers; D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D012333:RNA, Messenger