Homolog-specific PCR primer design for profiling splice variants

Nucleic Acids Res. 2011 May;39(10):e69. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkr127. Epub 2011 Mar 16.

Abstract

To study functional diversity of proteins encoded from a single gene, it is important to distinguish the expression levels among the alternatively spliced variants. A variant-specific primer pair is required to amplify each alternatively spliced variant individually. For this purpose, we developed a new feature, homolog-specific primer design (HSPD), in our high-throughput primer and probe design software tool, PRIMEGENS-v2. The algorithm uses a de novo approach to design primers without any prior information of splice variants or close homologs for an input query sequence. It not only designs primer pairs but also finds potential isoforms and homologs of the input sequence. Efficiency of this algorithm was tested for several gene families in soybean. A total of 187 primer pairs were tested under five different abiotic stress conditions with three replications at three time points. Results indicate a high success rate of primer design. Some primer pairs designed were able to amplify all splice variants of a gene. Furthermore, by utilizing combinations within the same multiplex pool, we were able to uniquely amplify a specific variant or duplicate gene. Our method can also be used to design PCR primers to specifically amplify homologs in the same gene family. PRIMEGENS-v2 is available at: http://primegens.org.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Alternative Splicing*
  • DNA Primers / chemistry*
  • Glycine max / genetics
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction*
  • Protein Isoforms / genetics*
  • Software*

Substances

  • DNA Primers
  • Protein Isoforms