Gene Prediction and Verification in a Compact Genome with Numerous Small Introns
Downloaded from genome.cshlp.org on October 9, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Methods Gene prediction and verification in a compact genome with numerous small introns Aaron E. Tenney,1 Randall H. Brown,1 Charles Vaske,1,4 Jennifer K. Lodge,2 Tamara L. Doering,3 and Michael R. Brent1,5 1Laboratory for Computational Genomics and Department of Computer Science, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA; 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63104, USA; 3Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, Missouri 63110-1093, USA The genomes of clusters of related eukaryotes are now being sequenced at an increasing rate, creating a need for accurate, low-cost annotation of exon–intron structures. In this paper, we demonstrate that reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) and direct sequencing based on predicted gene structures satisfy this need, at least for single-celled eukaryotes. The TWINSCAN gene prediction algorithm was adapted for the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans by using a precise model of intron lengths in combination with ungapped alignments between the genome sequences of the two closely related Cryptococcus varieties. This approach resulted in ∼60% of known genes being predicted exactly right at every coding base and splice site. When previously unannotated TWINSCAN predictions were tested by RT–PCR and direct sequencing, 75% of targets spanning two predicted introns were amplified and produced high-quality sequence. When targets spanning the complete predicted open reading frame were tested, 72% of them amplified and produced high-quality sequence.
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