Tapial, J. et al. Genome Res. 27, 1759–1768 (2017).

Much of the diversity in human gene expression is due to alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs and resulting RNA isoforms. To get a comprehensive picture of such splice events in vertebrate species, Tapial et al. quantified major splice types such as those involving intron retention and alternative 5′ and 3′ splice choices. The resulting Vertebrate Alternative Splicing and Transcription Database (VastDB; http://vastdb.crg.eu/) lists tens of thousands of alternative splice events in different tissues, cell types and developmental stages in human, mouse and chicken. Users can now easily determine which exons and introns in a gene are differentially spliced in a given cell type and draw conclusions about possible function. For example, genes with multiple major isoforms are enriched in functions involved with transcriptional control.