TopHat-Fusion: an algorithm for discovery of novel fusion transcripts

Genome Biol. 2011 Aug 11;12(8):R72. doi: 10.1186/gb-2011-12-8-r72.

Abstract

TopHat-Fusion is an algorithm designed to discover transcripts representing fusion gene products, which result from the breakage and re-joining of two different chromosomes, or from rearrangements within a chromosome. TopHat-Fusion is an enhanced version of TopHat, an efficient program that aligns RNA-seq reads without relying on existing annotation. Because it is independent of gene annotation, TopHat-Fusion can discover fusion products deriving from known genes, unknown genes and unannotated splice variants of known genes. Using RNA-seq data from breast and prostate cancer cell lines, we detected both previously reported and novel fusions with solid supporting evidence. TopHat-Fusion is available at http://tophat-fusion.sourceforge.net/.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Base Sequence
  • Breast Neoplasms / metabolism
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling / methods*
  • Gene Fusion*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / metabolism
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA
  • Software