Identification of novel alternative splice variants of the human L-DOPA decarboxylase (DDC) gene in human cancer cells, using high-throughput sequencing approaches

The human L-DOPA decarboxylase (DDC) is a gene that has been in the center of research attention in many laboratories the last decades, due to its major implication in various disorders, including many types of cancer. In the current work, we used in-house developed RACE and high-throughput sequencing approaches, in order to detect and identify novel DDC transcripts. Bioinformatic analysis revealed new alternative splicing events that support the existence of novel DDC transcripts. As a result, a total of 14 DDC splice variants were identified and their expression profile was investigated in a wide panel of human cancer cell lines. From all 14 novel DDC transcripts that were identified, 9 transcripts are predicted to encode new protein isoforms, while the remaining 5 are nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) candidates. Our results demonstrate that the human DDC gene undergoes complex processing leading to the figuration of multiple mRNA isoforms in cancer cells.