Welcome to Kassiopeia
Alternative splicing is an important process in higher eukaryotes that allows generating several transcripts out of one gene. One type of alternative splicing is mutually exclusive splicing, which refers to the splicing of exactly one exon out of a cluster of neighbouring exons into the mature transcript. Mutations in already one of the exons can lead to human diseases. Recently, we have developed a new algorithm for the prediction of these exons based on the preconditions that the exons of the cluster have similar lengths, sequence homology, and conserved splice sites, and that they are translated in the same reading frame[1].
Kassiopeia is a web application for the generation, storage, and presentation of genome-wide analyses of mutually exclusive exonomes. In the prediction pipeline relaxed parameters were used to also identify very divergent exons at the expense of potentially incorporating false positive predictions. However, Kassiopeia provides many filters to adjust these parameters to narrow the results further down at the analysis level. Kassiopeia also offers several search options so that users can analyse the data from the whole genome scale to the single gene case. In order to provide test data we predicted the mutually exclusive exonomes of twelve sequenced Drosophila species, of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, of the flatworm Caenorhabditis elegans, and of human.
Feedback
We would very much appreciate your feedback about any problems you may encounter. We also look forward to any suggestions for additional features and options.
Restrictions and Licence
The source code of Kassiopeia may be obtained upon request and used under a GNU General Public License.
