CuAS: a database of annotated transcripts generated by alternative splicing in cucumbers.

Background: Alternative splicing (AS) plays a critical regulatory role in modulating transcriptome and proteome diversity. In particular, it increases the functional diversity of proteins. Recent genome-wide analysis of AS using RNA-Seq has revealed that AS is highly pervasive in plants. Furthermore, it has been suggested that most AS events are subject to tissue-specific regulation.

Description: To reveal the functional characteristics induced by AS and tissue-specific splicing events, a database for exploring these characteristics is needed, especially in plants. To address these goals, we constructed a database of annotated transcripts generated by alternative splicing in cucumbers (CuAS: http://cmb.bnu.edu.cn/alt_iso/index.php) that integrates genomic annotations, isoform-level functions, isoform-level features, and tissue-specific AS events among multiple tissues. CuAS supports a retrieval system that identifies unique IDs (gene ID, isoform ID, UniProt ID, and gene name), chromosomal positions, and gene families, and a browser for visualization of each gene.

Conclusion: We believe that CuAS could be helpful for revealing the novel functional characteristics induced by AS and tissue-specific AS events in cucumbers. CuAS is freely available at http://cmb.bnu.edu.cn/alt_iso/index.php.