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Bioinformatic approaches for the identification of serpin genes with multiple reactive site loop coding exons
1Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
Methods in Enzymology
|November 15, 2011
Summary
Discovering multiple serpin isoforms from single genes is crucial for understanding antiproteolytic diversity. This study presents a bioinformatics method to systematically identify these multitasking serpin genes across eukaryotes.
Area of Science:
- Genomics
- Bioinformatics
- Molecular Biology
Background:
- Alternative splicing generates diverse serpin isoforms with varying target specificities.
- The full range of isoforms encoded by serpin genes is often underestimated in genomic databases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a bioinformatics approach for systematically identifying multi-isoform generating serpin genes.
- To highlight the underestimation of multitasking serpin genes in eukaryotes.
Main Methods:
- Development of procedures for extracting multi-isoform serpin genes from genomic sequences.
- Bioinformatic analysis of genomic data.
Main Results:
- A method for systematic extraction of multi-isoform serpin genes was developed.
- Phyletic distribution of these genes is significantly underestimated.
- The approach facilitates the study of serpin gene diversity.
Conclusions:
- The presented bioinformatic approach aids in dissecting the complete antiproteolytic spectrum of a genome.
- It enables the registration of multitasking serpin genes for functional and evolutionary studies.
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