Alternative splicing regulation not only depends on the interaction of splicing factors with splicing enhancers and silencers in the pre‑mRNA, but also on the coupling between transcription and splicing. This coupling is possible because splicing is often cotranscriptional and promoter...

Intron removal during pre‑mRNA splicing in higher eukaryotes requires the accurate identification of the two splice sites at the ends of the exons, or exon definition. The sequences constituting the splice sites provide insufficient information to distinguish true splice sites from the...

Although major splicing regulatory mechanisms rely on the presence of cis‑acting sequence elements in the precursor messenger RNA (pre‑mRNA) to which specific protein and RNA factors bind, splice choices are also influenced by transcription kinetics, promoter‑dependent loading...

Alternative splicing is a major source of diversity in the human proteome. The regulation of alternative splicing modulates the composition of this diversity to fulfill the physiological requirements of a cell. When control of alternative splicing is disrupted, the result can be a failure to meet...

SR proteins are a family of RNA binding proteins that contain a signature RS domain enriched with serine/arginine repeats. The RS domain is also found in many other proteins, which are collectively referred to as SR‑related proteins. Several prototypical SR proteins are essential splicing...

Alternative splicing is now recognized as a ubiquitous mechanism for controlling gene expression in a tissue‑specific manner. A growing body of work from the past few years has begun to also highlight the existence of networks of signal‑responsive alternative splicing in a variety of...

Prior to genomics, studies of alternative splicing primarily focused on the function and mechanism of alternative splicing in individual genes and exons. This has changed dramatically since the late 1990s. High‑throughput genomics technologies, such as EST sequencing and microarrays...

Proteins of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoparticles (hnRNP) family form a structurally diverse group of RNA binding proteins implicated in various functions in metazoans. Here we discuss recent advances supporting a role for these proteins in precursor‑messenger RNA (pre‑mRNA)...

Alternative splicing is a powerful means of controlling gene expression and increasing protein diversity. Most genes express a limited number of mRNA isoforms, but there are several examples of genes that use alternative splicing to generate hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of...

During the past ~20 years, studies on alternative splicing (AS) have largely been directed at the identification and characterization of factors and mechanisms responsible for the control of splice site selection, using model substrates and on a case by case basis. These studies have provided a...

We review here results arising from the systematic functional analysis of Nova, a neuron‑specific RNA binding protein targeted in an autoimmune neurological disorder associated with cancer. We have developed a combination of biochemical, genetic and bioinformatic methods to generate a...

Cells control alternative splicing by modulating assembly of the pre‑mRNA splicing machinery at competing splice sites. Therefore, a working knowledge of spliceosome assembly is essential for understanding how alternative splice site choices are achieved. In this chapter, we review...

Most human genes exhibit alternative splicing, but not all alternatively spliced transcripts produce functional proteins. Computational and experimental results indicate that a substantial fraction of alternative splicing events in humans result in mRNA isoforms that harbor a premature...