A computational reconstruction of the adult human heart transcriptional profile

The reconstruction of the transcriptional profile of the adult human heart was attempted, by applying a bioinformatic and computational approach to UniGene data. A catalogue of 2077 expressed genes was produced. Over 1000 entries of the catalogue corresponded to putative novel genes. Highly expressed genes accounted for about 20% of the total. Almost all genes expressed in adult heart resulted to be active in at least one additional tissue and about 90% were found in over five additional tissues. A genomic map of 1364 genes expressed in heart, which also indicated chromosomal location, was produced, which could be conveniently used for the discovery of the determinants of gene-orphan heart diseases and for the detection of clusters of highly expressed genes. The catalogue and the genomic map of genes expressed in adult human heart are available on Internet at the sites: http://telethon.bio.unipd.it/GETProfiles/heart and http://telethon.bio.unipd.it/GETMaps/heart.