title: Tissue Restricted Splice Junctions Originate Not Only from Tissue-Specific Gene Loci, but Gene Loci with a Broad Pattern of Expression.
abstract: Cellular mechanisms that achieve protein diversity in eukaryotes are multifaceted, including transcriptional components such as RNA splicing. Through alternative splicing, a single protein-coding gene can generate multiple mRNA transcripts and protein isoforms, some of which are tissue-specific. We have conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of the Bodymap 2.0 messenger RNA-sequencing data from 16 human tissue samples and identified 209,363 splice junctions. Of these, 22,231 (10.6%) were not previously annotated and 21,650 (10.3%) were expressed in a tissue-restricted pattern. Tissue-restricted alternative splicing was found to be widespread, with approximately 65% of expressed multi-exon genes containing at least one tissue-specific splice junction. Interestingly, we observed many tissue-specific splice junctions not only in genes expressed in one or a few tissues, but also from gene loci with a broad pattern of expression.
authors.affiliation: Gluck Equine Research Center, Department of Veterinary Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Hestand
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: Gluck Equine Research Center, Department of Veterinary Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Coleman
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jinze
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Gluck Equine Research Center, Department of Veterinary Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States of America.
authors.forename: James N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: MacLeod
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D015870:Gene Expression; D056426:Genetic Loci; D006801:Humans; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D009928:Organ Specificity; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D022821:RNA Splice Sites
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms; D022821:RNA Splice Sites