Transcript-level annotation of Affymetrix probesets improves the interpretation of gene expression data

Background: The wide use of Affymetrix microarray in broadened fields of biological research has made the probeset annotation an important issue. Standard Affymetrix probeset annotation is at gene level, i.e. a probeset is precisely linked to a gene, and probeset intensity is interpreted as gene expression. The increased knowledge that one gene may have multiple transcript variants clearly brings up the necessity of updating this gene-level annotation to a refined transcript-level. Results: Through performing rigorous alignments of the Affymetrix probe sequences against a comprehensive pool of currently available transcript sequences, and further linking the probesets to the International Protein Index, we generated transcript-level or protein-level annotation tables for two popular Affymetrix expression arrays, Mouse Genome 430A 2.0 Array and Human Genome U133A Array. Application of our new annotations in re-examining existing expression data sets shows increased expression consisten...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Hui Yu, Feng Wang, Kang Tu, Lu Xie, Yuan-Yuan Li, Yi-Xue Li
• Keywords: Affymetrix, Annotation, BMCBI 2007, Gene