Abstract

Many evidences report that alternative splicing, the mechanism which produces mRNAs and proteins with different structures and functions from the same gene, is altered in cancer cells. Thus, the identification and characterization of cancer-specific splice variants may give large impulse to the discovery of novel diagnostic and prognostic tumour biomarkers, as well as of new targets for more selective and effective therapies.ResultsWe present here a genome-wide analysis of the alternative splicing pattern of human genes through a computational analysis of normal and cancer-specific ESTs from seventeen anatomical groups, using data available in AspicDB, a database resource for the analysis of alternative splicing in human. By using a statistical methodology, normal and cancer-specific genes, splice sites and cassette exons were predicted in silico. The condition association of some of the novel normal/tumoral cassette exons was experimentally verified by RT-qPCR assays in the same anatomical system where they were predicted. Remarkably, the presence in vivo of the predicted alternative transcripts, specific for the nervous system, was confirmed in patients affected by glioblastoma.ConclusionThis study presents a novel computational methodology for the identification of tumor-associated transcript variants to be used as cancer molecular biomarkers, provides its experimental validation, and reports specific biomarkers for glioblastoma.

Autore Pugliese

• Tullo Apollonia , Pesole Graziano , Sbisa' Elisabetta

Tutti gli autori

• Valletti A.; Anselmo A.; Mangiulli M.; Boria I.; Mignone F.; Merla G.; D'Angelo V.; Tullo A.; Sbisa' E.; D'Erchia A.M.; Pesole G.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Molecular cancer

Anno di pubblicazione

2010

ISSN

1476-4598

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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