Issue 10, 2015

Human genes with a greater number of transcript variants tend to show biological features of housekeeping and essential genes

Abstract

Alternative splicing is a process observed in gene expression that results in a multi-exon gene to produce multiple mRNA variants which might have different functions and activities. Although physiologically important, many aspects of genes with different number of transcript variants (or splice variants) still remain to be characterized. In this study, we provide bioinformatic evidence that genes with a greater number of transcript variants are more likely to play functionally important roles in cells, compared with those having fewer transcript variants. Among 21 983 human genes, 3728 genes were found to have a single transcript, and the remaining genes had 2 to 77 transcript variants. The genes with more transcript variants exhibited greater frequencies of acting as housekeeping and essential genes rather than tissue-selective and non-essential genes. They were found to be more conserved among 64 vertebrate species as orthologs, subjected to regulations by transcription factors and microRNAs, and showed hub node-like properties in the human protein–protein interaction network. These findings were also confirmed by metabolic simulations of 60 cancer metabolic models. All these results indicate that genes with a greater number of transcript variants play biologically more fundamental roles.

Graphical abstract: Human genes with a greater number of transcript variants tend to show biological features of housekeeping and essential genes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 ሜይ 2015
Accepted
01 ኦገስ 2015
First published
04 ኦገስ 2015

Mol. BioSyst., 2015,11, 2798-2807

Author version available

Human genes with a greater number of transcript variants tend to show biological features of housekeeping and essential genes

J. Y. Ryu, H. U. Kim and S. Y. Lee, Mol. BioSyst., 2015, 11, 2798 DOI: 10.1039/C5MB00322A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements