Figure 1. Options from FAST DB. Example with the human PDLIM5 gene. (a) Main page of FAST DB for the PDLIM5 gene. The exon/intron gene structure is displayed with known alternative events in red. In particular, exons 10 to 12 are known to be multiple‐cassette exons, and exons 9 and 18 are two alternative terminal exons for this gene; (b) Tissue‐specificity of the multiple‐cassette exons 10 to 12 using EST data. These exons seems to be specifically included in muscle and heart tissues (blue bars) and skipped in the other tissues (red bars); (c) The in silico PCR option of FAST DB allows facilitation of the primer design for RT‐PCR validations and prediction of the expected product sizes and sequences; (d) FAST DB allows prediction of the functional consequences of alternative events by providing protein domains prediction through direct links to specialist databases (e.g., SMART). In this example, the short form ending in exon 9 is predicted to be translated in protein‐encoded one PDZ domain. The long form (ending in exon 18) is predicted to be translated in protein‐encoded one PDZ domain and three LIM domains.