Towards Reliable Isoform Quantification Using RNA-Seq Data

In eukaryotes, alternative splicing often generates multiple splice variants from a single gene. Here we explore the use of RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) datasets to address the isoform quantification problem. Given a set of known splice variants, the goal is to estimate the relative abundance of the individual variants. Our method employs a linear models framework to estimate the ratios of known isoforms in a sample. A key feature of our method is that it takes into account the non-uniformity of RNA-Seq read positions along the targeted transcripts. Preliminary tests indicate that the model performs well on both simulated and real data.