The human adult skeletal muscle transcriptional profile reconstructed by a novel computational approach.

By applying a novel software tool, information on 4080 UniGene clusters was retrieved from three adult human skeletal muscle cDNA libraries, which were selected for being neither normalized nor subtracted. Reconstruction of a transcriptional profile of the corresponding tissue was attempted by a computational approach, classifying each transcript according to its level of expression. About 25% of the transcripts accounted for about 80% of the detected transcriptional activity, whereas most genes showed a low level of expression. This in silico transcriptional profile was then compared with data obtained by a SAGE study. A fairly good agreement between the two methods was observed. About 400 genes, highly expressed in skeletal muscle or putatively skeletal muscle-specific, may represent the minimal set of genes needed to determine the tissue specificity. These genes could be used as a convenient reference to monitor major changes in the transcriptional profile of adult human skeletal muscle in response to different physiological or pathological conditions, thus providing a framework for designing DNA microarrays and initiating biological studies.