MORE | Spring 2021

Alternative Promoter Usage Using Transcription Start Sites

With relatively small genomes, many species have evolved mechanisms for diversifying their transcriptome (set of messenger mRNA transcripts in a given cell). One of the mechanisms to do so is alternative promoter usage (AP), which generates different transcripts by selecting different transcription start sites (TSS). There are existing methods to computationally analyze these TSS, that can be improved upon. The goal of this research is to present an innovative tool for normalizing and clustering TSS sites as well as researching differential TSS usage between different conditions.