AluGene: A database of Alu elements incorporated within protein-coding genes

Tal Dagan*, Rotem Sorek, Eilon Sharon, Gil Ast, Dan Graur

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Alu elements are short interspersed elements (SINEs) ∼300 nucleotides in length. More than 1 million Alus are found in the human genome. Despite their being genetically functionless, recent findings suggest that Alu elements may have a broad evolutionary impact by affecting gene structures, protein sequences, splicing motifs and expression patterns. Because of these effects, compiling a genomic database of Alu sequences that reside within protein-coding genes seemed a useful enterprise. Presently, such data are limited since the structural and positional information on genes and Alu sequences are scattered throughout incompatible and unconnected databases. AluGene (http://Alugene.tau.ac.il/) provides easy access to a complete Alu map of the human genome, as well as Alu-associated information. The Alu elements are annotated with respect to coding region and exon/intron location. This design facilitates queries on Alu sequences, locations, as well as motifs and compositional properties via a one-stop search page.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)D489-D492
JournalNucleic Acids Research
Volume32
Issue numberDATABASE ISS.
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2004

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