A computational and experimental approach toward a priori identification of alternatively spliced exons

Alternative splicing is a powerful means of regulating gene expression and enhancing protein diversity. In fact, the majority of metazoan genes encode pre-mRNAs that are alternatively spliced to produce anywhere from two to tens of thousands of mRNA isoforms. Thus, an important part of determining the complete proteome of an organism is developing a catalog of all mRNA isoforms. Alternatively spliced exons are typically identified by aligning EST clusters to reference mRNAs or genomic DNA. However, this approach is not useful for genomes that lack robust EST coverage, and tools that enable accurate prediction of alternatively spliced exons would be extraordinarily useful. Here, we use comparative genomics to identify, and experimentally verify, potential alternative exons based solely on their high degree of conservation between Drosophila melanogaster and D. pseudoobscura. At least 40% of the exons that fit our prediction criteria are in fact alternatively spliced. Thus, comparative genomics can be used to accurately predict certain classes of alternative exons without relying on EST data.