The National Cancer Center (NCC) said Tuesday that it has established ASpedia, a comprehensive database of “alternative human splicing,” to help find biomarkers that can diagnose cancer early.

Alternative splicing is a process where a single gene can produce various combinations of proteins. Such factor is important as even the same gene produces slightly different protein isotopes, which in turn can have different effects on disease. Although this process may be an important clue to finding genomic markers, it has not seen active research until now.

The NCC team led by Professor Park Charny analyzed the various variables affecting this alternative splicing in depth from a multi-mix perspective and constructed ASpedia.

The database provides information on genomic assays extracted from DNA, RNA and protein, transcription and regulatory elements analyzed from next-generation sequencing (NGS) data, and similar specific functions collected from known data.

“This database will be helpful in analyzing the alternative splicing of the cancer-based transcriptome in big data and identifying biomarkers that can diagnose cancer early,” Park said.

The results of the study were published in a recent edition of Nucleic Acids Research, one of the most influential life science-related journals.