NEIBANK: EST Analysis/Bioinformatics for Ocular Genomics

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The eye is a complex system of highly differentiated tissues of various developmental origins. Many genes essential for eye function are tissue-specific and many of those known are associated with genetic eye diseases. The majority of human expressed genes are known only through expressed sequence tags (ESTs). However, with the exception of retina, many eye tissues have been poorly represented in the cDNA libraries that have so far contributed to dbEST. To address this situation a project, NEIBANK, has been initiated to improve the EST coverage of the human eye. cDNA libraries for lens, ciliary body/iris and RPE/choroid have been constructed. 2000 clones from each un-normalized library have been sequenced, analyzed and clustered. Several novel genes have been identified, including Oculoglycan (an eye-specific LRR protein whose gene maps close to ARMD), LGS (an abundant lens specific transcript related to glutamine synthestase), Oculospanin (a novel tetraspan that maps to chr17) and others. Normalization and deeper sequence is under way. This resource will be of value for micro-arrays and for full- length cDNA collections. - EST, Bioinformatics, cDNA, genomics