STAR vs STAR-fusion

Question

[KVC_bioinfo]

Hello,

I am reading the STAR manual and I came across the publication for STAR-fusion. I could not understand how different they are from each other. Could someone help me understand the difference?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

[Satyajeet Khare]

STAR aligner is a splice aware aligner that aligns junction reads using a guide GTF. STAR-fusion allows identification of fusion transcripts. In many cases you get fusion transcripts due to chromosomal translocation (cancer) or trans-splicing etc. Other splice aware aligners (Tophat-Fusion) also have fusion engine for same purpose.