Figure 4

Splicing and mouse-human conservation patterns for sense and antisense ESTs from UniGene cluster Hs.113916. The graph depicts the exon-intron splicing structures of transcript sequences belonging to UniGene cluster Hs.113916. Organization of the figure as for Figure 2. The BOU mRNA (GenBank accession NM_032966) is oriented from left to right with respect to genomic contig Hs11_9491_24 of the NCBI human genome assembly. The mRNA encodes Burkitt lymphoma receptor 1, a GTP-binding protein. Although the transcript does not appear to be spliced, the sense ESTs terminate in a position consistent with that of the mRNA. Although the coding region of the sense transcript shows the highest degree of conservation between mouse and human, there are clearly islands of conservation within its 3' UTR. The antisense ESTs intersect with the most 3' portion of the sense transcript. They contain appropriately located polyadenylation signals, such that we are probably observing the 3' tail of an oppositely oriented transcript. The antisense ESTs have no protein homologies. It is worth noting that the most conserved stretch of the 3' UTR of the sense transcript is coincident with its region of overlap with the antisense RNA species.