title: Computational identification of operon-like transcriptional loci in eukaryotes.
abstract: Operons are primarily a bacterial phenomenon, not commonly observed in eukaryotes. However, new research indicates that operons are found in higher organisms as well. There are instances of operons found in C. elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and other eukaryotic species. We developed a prototype using positional, structural and gene expression information to identify candidate operons. We focused our efforts on "trans-spliced" operons in which the pre-mRNA is trans-spliced into individual transcripts and subsequently translated, as widely observed in C. elegans and some instances in Drosophila. We identify several candidate operons in Drosophila melanogaster of which two have been subsequently molecularly validated.
authors.affiliation: Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. kishore@eng.uiowa.edu
authors.forename: Kishore
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nannapaneni
authors.forename: Yehuda
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ben-Shahar
authors.forename: Henry L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Keen
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Welsh
authors.forename: Thomas L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Casavant
authors.forename: Todd E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Scheetz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster; D056426:Genetic Loci / Q000502:physiology*; D009876:Operon / Q000502:physiology*; D012326:RNA Splicing / Q000502:physiology*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA / Q000379:methods*; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger