Beyond Bioinformatics

Title

Alternative splicing:  a paradoxical qudo in eukaryotic genomes

Authors

Luv Kashyap¹ and Ravi Kumar Sharma^{2, *}

Affiliation

¹Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India, ²Botany Division, Central Drug Research Institute, M G Marg, Lucknow

Email

rkscdri@gmail.com; * Corresponding author

Article Type

Views & Challenges

Date

received December 03, 2007; revised December 08, 2007; accepted December 11, 2007; published online December 12, 2007

One of the most remarkable observations stemming from the sequencing of genomes of diverse species is that the number of protein-coding genes in an organism does not correlate with its overall cellular complexity. Alternative splicing, a key mechanism for generating protein complexity, has been suggested as one of the major explanation for this discrepancy between the number of genes and genome complexity. Determining the extent and importance of alternative splicing required the confluence of critical advances in data acquisition, improved understanding of biological processes and the development of fast and accurate computational analysis tools. Although many model organisms have now been completely sequenced, we are still very far from understanding the exact frequency of alternative splicing from these sequenced genomes.This paper will highlight some recent progress and future challenges for functional genomics and bioinformatics in this rapidly developing area.

alternative splicing; protein; genes; cellular complexity

Citation

Kashyap & Sharma, Bioinformation 2(4): 155-156 (2007)

Edited by

P. Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics Publishing Group

Copyright

Publisher

Copyright Transfer Agreement

The authors of published articles in Bioinformation automatically transfer the copyright to the publisher upon formal acceptance. However, the authors reserve right to use the information contained in the article for non commercial purposes.

License

This is an open-access article, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.