Analysis of a human brain transcriptome map

BACKGROUND: Genome wide transcriptome maps can provide tools to identify candidate genes that are over-expressed or silenced in certain disease tissue and increase our understanding of the structure and organization of the genome. Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) from the public dbEST and proprietary Incyte LifeSeq databases were used to derive a transcript map in conjunction with the working draft assembly of the human genome sequence. RESULTS: Examination of ESTs derived from brain tissues (excluding brain tumor tissues) suggests that these genes are distributed on chromosomes in a non-random fashion. Some regions on the genome are dense with brain-enriched genes while some regions lack brain-enriched genes, suggesting a significant correlation between distribution of genes along the chromosome and tissue type. ESTs from brain tumor tissues have also been mapped to the human genome working draft. We reveal that some regions enriched in brain genes show a significant decrease in gene expression in brain tumors, and, conversely that some regions lacking in brain genes show an increased level of gene expression in brain tumors. CONCLUSIONS: This report demonstrates a novel approach for tissue specific transcriptome mapping using EST-based quantitative assessment.