Cross-species inference of long non-coding RNAs greatly expands the ruminant transcriptome

Table 1 Comparatively few lncRNAs appear positionally conserved, suggesting minimal overlap between each species’ set of transcripts

Species 1	Species 2	Number of syntenic blocks (i.e. three conserved consecutive genes)	Number of unique protein-coding genes in the set of syntenic blocks	Total number of positionally conserved lncRNAs in the set of syntenic blocks (in either the up- or downstream position)	% of syntenic blocks with at least one positionally conserved lncRNA
Sheep	Cattle	2927	5601	280	9.57
Sheep	Goat	2038	3883	82	4.02
Sheep	Human	380	930	8	2.11
Goat	Cattle	2982	5258	169	5.67
Goat	Human	527	1262	2	0.38
Cattle	Human	443	1063	5	1.13

The results suggest that the lncRNAs that are expected to be found at a given genomic location are captured in only one species, not both, consistent with the stochastic sampling of lncRNAs by RNA-seq libraries

ISSN: 1297-9686