title: PTESFinder: a computational method to identify post-transcriptional exon shuffling (PTES) events.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Transcripts, which have been subject to Post-transcriptional exon shuffling (PTES), have an exon order inconsistent with the underlying genomic sequence. These have been identified in a wide variety of tissues and cell types from many eukaryotes, and are now known to be mostly circular, cytoplasmic, and non-coding. Although there is no uniformly ascribed function, several have been shown to be involved in gene regulation. Accurate identification of these transcripts can, however, be difficult due to artefacts from a wide variety of sources.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here, we present a computational method, PTESFinder, to identify these transcripts from high throughput RNAseq data. Uniquely, it systematically excludes potential artefacts emanating from pseudogenes, segmental duplications, and template switching, and outputs both PTES and canonical exon junction counts to facilitate comparative analyses. In comparison with four existing methods, PTESFinder achieves highest specificity and comparable sensitivity at a variety of read depths. PTESFinder also identifies between 13 % and 41.6 % more structures, compared to publicly available methods recently used to identify human circular RNAs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With high sensitivity and specificity, user-adjustable filters that target known sources of false positives, and tailored output to facilitate comparison of transcript levels, PTESFinder will facilitate the discovery and analysis of these poorly understood transcripts.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. g.izuogu@ncl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Osagie G
authors.initials: OG
authors.lastname: Izuogu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. abd.al-hasan@newcastle.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Abd A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Alhasan
authors.affiliation: Security Forces Hostpital, P. O. Box 2748-24268-8541, Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. hani940@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Hani M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Alafghani
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. mauro.santibanez-koref@ncl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Santibanez-Koref
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Elliott
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. david.elliot@ncl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Elliot
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. michael.jackson@ncl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Jackson
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D005091:Exons; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D016678:Genome; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D012313:RNA; D000079962:RNA, Circular; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D000079962:RNA, Circular; D012313:RNA