Sequence motifs predictive of tissue-specific skipping

Alternative splicing plays a major role in protein diversity and regulating gene expression. Motifs that regulate tissue-specific alternative splicing have been identified by groups studying small sets of genes. We introduce a tissue-specific skipping score for skipped exons using exon-exon junction microarray data. We compare these exons with known literature-verified EST skipped exons and exons predicted to be skipped in both human and mouse. After deriving tissue-specific skipped exon sets for brain, heart, muscle and testis, we find sequence features in the exon and flanking introns that distinguish these tissue-specific skipped exons from constitutive exons. Lastly, we use sequence-based scoring based on these features to predict tissue-specific skipped exons and compare these with EST data to demonstrate the tissue-specificity of the motifs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Soni, Neha

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tomaso Poggio.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35608

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35608