Human genes sing different tunes in differe...(ssue-dependent. Certain protein isoforms...)

Date:11/2/2008

ssue-dependent. Certain protein isoforms that are common in heart tissue, for example, might be very rare in brain tissue, so that the alternative exon functions like a molecular switch. Scientists who study splicing have a general idea of how tissue-specificity may be achieved, but they have much less understanding of why isoforms display such tissue specificity, Burge said.

Scientists have also observed that cells express different isoforms during embryonic development and at different stages of cellular differentiation. Burge's team is now studying cells at various stages of differentiation to see when different isoforms are expressed.

Isoform switching also occurs in cancer cells. One such switch involves a metabolic enzyme and contributes to cancer cells burning large amounts of glucose and growing more rapidly. Learning more about such switches could lead to potential cancer therapies, Burge said.

Until now, it has been difficult to study isoforms on a genome-wide scale because of the high cost of sequencing and technical issues in discriminating similar mRNA isoforms using microarrays. The team took mRNA samples from 10 types of tissue and five cell lines from a total of 20 individuals, and generated more than 13 billion base pairs of sequence, the equivalent of more than four entire human genomes.

The sequencing was done by researchers at biotech firm Illumina, using a new high-throughput sequencing machine.

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Contact: Teresa Herbert therbert@mit.edu 617-258-5403 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Source:Eurekalert

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