Most human genes found to make isoforms

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've found nearly all human genes produce varying forms of the same protein, depending on the tissue in which the gene is found.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Associate Professor Christopher Burge, who led the study, said a single gene can produce different forms of the same protein by skipping or including sequences from the messenger RNA, in a phenomenon known as alternative splicing.

"A decade ago, alternative splicing of a gene was considered unusual, exotic … but it turns out that's not true at all -- it's a nearly universal feature of human genes," said Burge. His team found that about 94 percent of human genes generate isoforms, or different forms of the same protein.

The researchers also found isoforms are often highly tissue-dependent, so that one isoform might be common in heart tissue, but rare in brain tissue. Learning more about isoforms could lead to potential cancer therapies, Burge said.

The study that included researchers from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, the Whitehead Institute, the National Center for Genome Resources and the California-based Illumina Corp. appears in the online edition of Nature.