What is a Microexon?
Background. Microexons, exons that are ≤ 30 nucleotides, are a highly conserved and dynamically regulated set of cassette exons. They have key roles in nervous system development and function, as evidenced by recent results demonstrating the impact of microexons on behaviour and cognition.
Why alternative splicing is important?
The overall function of alternative splicing is to increase the diversity of the mRNA expressed from the genome. Due to the combinatorial control mechanisms that regulate alternative exon recognition, splicing programs coordinate the generation of mRNA isoforms from multiple genes.
What is an example of alternative splicing?
Collectively such genes are considered to undergo complex alternative splicing. The best example is the Drosophila Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam) gene, which can generate 38,016 isoforms by the alternative splicing of 95 variable exons.
What are the different types of alternative splicing?
Five main types of alternative splicing events are depicted. (A) Constitutive splicing; (B) mutually exclusive exons; (C) cassette alternative exon; (D) alternative 3′ splice site; (E) alternative 5′ splice site; and (F) intron retention.
What is the difference between splicing and alternative splicing?
The main difference between RNA splicing and alternative splicing is that the RNA splicing is the process of splicing the exons of the primary transcript of mRNA whereas the alternative splicing is the process of producing differential combinations of exons of the same gene.
What is the process of alternative splicing?
Alternative splicing is the process of selecting different combinations of splice sites within a messenger RNA precursor (pre-mRNA) to produce variably spliced mRNAs. These multiple mRNAs can encode proteins that vary in their sequence and activity, and yet arise from a single gene.
What are the modes of alternative splicing?
Who discovered alternative splicing?
Gilbert
First hypothesized by Gilbert (1978), this process, known as alternative splicing (AS), appears to be widespread in eukaryotes, seemingly reaching its apex in mammals (Barbosa-Morais et al. 2012), in which 95% of multiexon genes undergo AS (Pan et al.