Their increased overall gene expression diversity and more numerous transcript variants within individuals are likely to contribute to more robust/complex regulatory networks and to heterosis, which may facilitate adaptation to novel conditions.
This occurred because reads were found to be intronic in many cases, when in actuality they were exonic with respect to the more common transcript variant.
This screening assay covering 28 different fusion transcripts was used to test for the presence of more than 80 fusion transcript variants.
We excluded those exons that contained transcript variants in more than one chromosome, such as transposons.
More importantly, there were 128 transcript variants expressed in ICM cells that were completely lost in ESCs.
Alternative splicing is an important mechanism by which proteomic diversity is achieved in eukaryotes, with most mammalian genes encoding more than one transcript variant [2], [3].
This was mostly because more than one transcript variant shared the same ORF or ORFs.
In cases where more than one transcript variant was returned, the longest was chosen.
In cases where the EST matched more than one transcript variant of a gene then the top hit is listed.
