Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e55671. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055671. Epub 2013 Feb 7.
Alternative splicing has the potential to increase the diversity of the transcriptome and proteome. Where more than one transcript arises from a gene they are often so different that they are quite unlikely to have the same function. However, it remains unclear if alternative splicing generally leads to a gene being involved in multiple biological processes or whether it alters the function within a single process. Knowing that genetic interactions occur between functionally related genes, we have used them as a proxy for functional versatility, and have analysed the sets of genes of two well-characterised model organisms: Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster. Using network analyses we find that few genes are functionally homogenous (only involved in a few functionally-related biological processes). Moreover, there are differences between alternatively spliced genes and genes with a single transcript; specifically, genes with alternatively splicing are, on average, involved in more biological processes. Finally, we suggest that factors other than specific functional classes determine whether a gene is alternatively spliced.
选择性剪接有可能增加转录组和蛋白质组的多样性。同一个基因可能会产生多种转录本，这些转录本通常差异很大，不太可能具有相同的功能。然而，目前尚不清楚选择性剪接是否通常会导致一个基因参与多个生物过程，或者它是否会改变单个过程中的功能。由于知道遗传相互作用发生在功能相关的基因之间，我们将它们用作功能多样性的替代指标，并对两种特征明确的模式生物（秀丽隐杆线虫和黑腹果蝇）的基因集合进行了分析。通过网络分析，我们发现很少有基因具有功能同质性（仅参与少数功能相关的生物过程）。此外，具有选择性剪接的基因与具有单个转录本的基因之间存在差异；具体而言，具有选择性剪接的基因平均参与更多的生物过程。最后，我们认为除了特定的功能类别之外，还有其他因素决定一个基因是否具有选择性剪接。
