Figure 1

Schematic illustration of computational prediction and experimental validation of splice variants. We used virtual splicing events to extract all potential SAGE tags spanning the predicted splice junctions as shown. Introns and flanking 13 bp sequences were used for extraction of SAGE tags identifying cases of intron retention. For exon skipping validation, one of the primers spanned the predicted splice junction, so that hybridization with the template mRNA was possible only if the predicted transcript was present in the mRNA pool. Detection of an RT-PCR product with a larger size than expected for a normally spliced isoform confirmed intron retention events.