ASlive: a database for alternative splicing atlas in livestock animals

BACKGROUND: Alternative splicing is an important biological process whose precision must be tightly regulated during growth and development. Although there are species, disease (e.g. cancers), or study specific databases available in many organisms, no database exists in livestock animals specifically tailored for alternative splicing. DESCRIPTION: We present in this study the development and implementation of a database for alternative splicing atlas in livestock animals (ASlive.org). Using publicly available RNASeq data sets across many tissues, cell types, and biological conditions totaling 28.6 T bases, we built a database of alternative splicing events in five major livestock and poultry animal species (cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, and chickens). The database contains many types of information on alternative splicing events, including basic information such as genomic locations, genes, and event types, quantitative measurements of alternative splicing in the form of percent spliced in (PSI), overlap with known DNA variants, as well as orthologous events across different lineage groups. CONCLUSIONS: This database, the first of its kind in livestock animals, will provide a useful exploratory tool to assist functional annotation of animal genomes.