HumanUpstream and MouseUpstream: databases of promoter sequences in the human and mouse genomes.

Large-scale genome annotations, based largely on gene prediction programs, may be inaccurate in their predictions of transcription start sites, so that the identification of promoter regions remains unreliable. Here we focus on the identification of reliable gene promoter regions, critical to the understanding of transcriptional regulation. We report the construction of databases of upstream sequences Human Upstream and Mouse Upstream based on information from both the human and mouse genomes and the database of expressed sequence tags (dbEST). Using the ENSEMBL generic genome annotation system, our approach allows more reliable identification of transcript start sites, and therefore extraction of more reliable promoters regions. The Human Upstream and Human Upstream databases are available free of charge.