02836nas a2200337 4500008004100000022001400041245008700055210006900142260001300211300001100224490000700235520183700242653002102079653002302100653000802123653003102131653001802162653001102180653003002191653002202221653001302243653002602256653003402282653002702316100001802343700002202361700002102383700001502404700003002419856004902449 2009 eng d a1088-905100aA transcription factor affinity-based code for mammalian transcription initiation.0 atranscription factor affinitybased code for mammalian transcript c2009 Apr a644-560 v193 a

The recent arrival of large-scale cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE) data sets in mammals provides a wealth of quantitative information on coding and noncoding RNA polymerase II transcription start sites (TSS). Genome-wide CAGE studies reveal that a large fraction of TSS exhibit peaks where the vast majority of associated tags map to a particular location ( approximately 45%), whereas other active regions contain a broader distribution of initiation events. The presence of a strong single peak suggests that transcription at these locations may be mediated by position-specific sequence features. We therefore propose a new model for single-peaked TSS based solely on known transcription factors (TFs) and their respective regions of positional enrichment. This probabilistic model leads to near-perfect classification results in cross-validation (auROC = 0.98), and performance in genomic scans demonstrates that TSS prediction with both high accuracy and spatial resolution is achievable for a specific but large subgroup of mammalian promoters. The interpretable model structure suggests a DNA code in which canonical sequence features such as TATA-box, Initiator, and GC content do play a significant role, but many additional TFs show distinct spatial biases with respect to TSS location and are important contributors to the accurate prediction of single-peak transcription initiation sites. The model structure also reveals that CAGE tag clusters distal from annotated gene starts have distinct characteristics compared to those close to gene 5'-ends. Using this high-resolution single-peak model, we predict TSS for approximately 70% of mammalian microRNAs based on currently available data.

[Links to Tools and Supplementary Materials]

10aBase Composition10aDatabases, Genetic10aDNA10aGene Expression Regulation10aGenome, Human10aHumans10aPromoter Regions, Genetic10aRNA Polymerase II10aTATA Box10aTranscription Factors10aTranscription Initiation Site10aTranscription, Genetic1 aMegraw, Molly1 aPereira, Fernando1 aJensen, Shane, T1 aOhler, Uwe1 aHatzigeorgiou, Artemis, G uhttps://megraw.cgrb.oregonstate.edu/node/326