EXPANSION: A Webserver to Explore the Functional Consequences of Protein-Coding Alternative Splice Variants in Cancer Genomics

EXPANSION (https://expansion.bioinfolab.sns.it/) is an integrated web-server to explore the functional consequences of protein-coding alternative splice (AS) variants. We combined information from Differentially Expressed (DE) protein-coding transcripts from cancer genomics, together with domain architecture, protein interaction network, and gene enrichment analysis to provide an easy-to-interpret view of the effects of protein-coding splice variants. We retrieved all the protein-coding Ensembl transcripts and mapped Interpro domains and Post-translational modifications (PTMs) on canonical sequences to identify functionally relevant splicing events. We also retrieved isoform-specific protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and binding regions from IntAct to uncover isoform-specific functions via gene-sets over-representation analysis. Through EXPANSION, users can analyse pre-calculated or user-inputted DE transcript datasets, to easily gain functional insights on any protein spliceform of interest.