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Abstract:
Complex biological systems comprise a large number of interacting molecules.
The identification and detailed characterization of the functions of the
involved genes and proteins are crucial for modeling and understanding such
systems. To interrogate the various cellular processes, high-throughput
techniques such as the Affymetrix Exon Array or RNA interference (RNAi) screens
are powerful experimental approaches for functional genomics. However, they
typically yield long gene lists that require computational methods to further
analyze and functionally annotate the experimental results and to gain more
insight into important molecular interactions. Here, we focus on bioinformatics
software tools for the functional interpretation of exon expression data to
discover alternative splicing events and their impact on gene and protein
architecture, molecular networks, and pathways. We additionally demonstrate how
to explore large lists of candidate genes as they also result from RNAi
screens. In particular, our exemplary application studies show how to analyze
the function of human genes that play a major role in human stem cells or viral
infections.