Deep Sequencing Study Reveals new Insights into Human Transcriptome

In a collaborative project scientists from the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin (MPI MolGen), Germany and Genomatix with a business in Munich, Germany and Ann Arbor, MI, USA, applied next generation sequencing and analysis methods to generate an unprecedented view at the human transcriptome.

Deep sequencing of transcripts from two human cell lines revealed so far unrecognized complexity and variability of the human transcriptome. They found that 34% of the polyadenylated transcriptome mapped to previously non-annotated genomic regions. Obviously a large number of novel gene candidates are active in the cell lines under study.

In addition, a global survey of mRNA splicing events identified 94,241 splice junctions, of which 4,096 are novel, and showed that exon skipping is the most prevalent form of alternative splicing.

Details are presented in the Science report of Sultan et al.: "A Global View of Gene Activity and Alternative Splicing by Deep Sequencing of the Human Transcriptome", published online at Science Express.