Integrative Visual Analysis of the Effects of Alternative Splicing on Protein Domain Interaction Networks

Abstract

Proteins and their interactions are essential for the functioning of all organisms and for understanding biological processes. Alternative splicing is an important molecular mechanism for increasing the protein diversity in eukaryotic cells. Splicing events that alter the protein structure and the domain composition can be responsible for the regulation of protein interactions and the functional diversity of different tissues. Discovering the occurrence of splicing events and studying protein isoforms have become feasible using Affymetrix Exon Arrays. Therefore, we have developed the versatile Cytoscape plugin DomainGraph that allows for the visual analysis of protein domain interaction networks and their integration with exon expression data. Protein domains affected by alternative splicing are highlighted and splicing patterns can be compared.