Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on October 11, 2007
Nucleic Acids Research 2008 36(Database issue):D780-D786; doi:10.1093/nar/gkm779
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Nucleic Acids Research, 2008, Vol. 36, Database issue D780-D786
© 2007 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article appears in the following Nucleic Acids Research issue: Database issue [View the issue table of contents]
Articles |
X:Map: annotation and visualization of genome structure for Affymetrix exon array analysis
J. OkoniewskiCancer Research UK, Bioinformatics Group, Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, The University of Manchester, Christie Hospital Site, Wilmslow Road, Withington, Manchester, M20 4BX, UK
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +44 161 446 3156; Fax: +44 161 446 3109; Email: cmiller{at}picr.man.ac.uk
Received August 1, 2007. Revised September 14, 2007. Accepted September 17, 2007.
Affymetrix exon arrays aim to target every known and predicted exon in the human, mouse or rat genomes, and have reporters that extend beyond protein coding regions to other areas of the transcribed genome. This combination of increased coverage and precision is important because a substantial proportion of protein coding genes are predicted to be alternatively spliced, and because many non-coding genes are known also to be of biological significance. In order to fully exploit these arrays, it is necessary to associate each reporter on the array with the features of the genome it is targeting, and to relate these to gene and genome structure. X:Map is a genome annotation database that provides this information. Data can be browsed using a novel Google-maps based interface, and analysed and further visualized through an associated BioConductor package. The database can be found at http://xmap.picr.man.ac.uk.