To investigate the prevalence and genotype-phenotype correlations of phosphatase tensin homolog induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1) variants in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, we analyzed 1700 patients (842 familial PD 858 sporadic from Japanese origin). We screened entire exon exon-intron boundaries PINK1 using Sanger sequencing target by Ion torrent system. identified 30 with heterozygous va...

The alternatively spliced 290-nucleotide NS2-specific exon of the parvovirus minute virus of mice (MVM), which is flanked by a large intron upstream and a small intron downstream, constitutively appears both in the R1 mRNA as part of a large 5'-terminal exon (where it is translated in open reading frame 3 [ORF3]), and in the R2 mRNA as an internal exon (where it is translated in ORF2). We have ...

In theory, the rat fast skeletal muscle troponin T gene can generate 64 different isoforms. Here we report the identification of a novel alternative exon (exon y) that increases the potential isoform variation to 128. The inclusion of exon y in fast skeletal muscle troponin T mRNA occurs in perinatal, but not adult, skeletal muscle. Exon y is located between exons 8 and 9. This is the first tim...

PURPOSE In breast cancer, the PIK3CA gene is frequently mutated at "hotspots" in exons 9 and 20, corresponding to the helical and kinase domains, respectively. We decided to investigate the association of PIK3CA mutations with pathologic features and clinical outcome in a large series of patients with breast cancer. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Frozen samples from 163 consecutive patients were analyze...

Tau protein, which binds to and stabilizes microtubules, is critical for neuronal survival and function. In the human brain, tau pre-mRNA splicing is regulated to maintain a delicate balance of exon 10-containing and exon 10-skipping isoforms. Splicing mutations affecting tau exon 10 alternative splicing lead to tauopathies, a group of neurodegenerative disorders including dementia. Molecular m...

Antisense oligonucleotides (AONs) in clinical development for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) aim to induce skipping of a specific exon of the dystrophin transcript during pre-mRNA splicing. This results in restoration of the open reading frame and consequently synthesis of a dystrophin protein with a shorter yet functional central rod domain. To monitor the molecular therapeutic effect of ex...

The glial fibrillary acidic protein, GFAP, forms the intermediate cytoskeleton in cells of the glial lineage. Besides the common GFAP alpha transcript, the GFAP epsilon and GFAP kappa transcripts are generated by alternative mRNA 3'-end processing. Here we use a GFAP minigene to characterize molecular mechanisms participating in alternative GFAP expression. Usage of a polyadenylation signal wit...

The dystrophin gene, which is mutated in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is the largest known human gene and characterized by the huge size of its introns. Intron 2 has been shown to include cryptic exons termed exons 2a and 2b, while intron 3 has been shown to include a cryptic exon designated exon 3a. In the present study, we identified 2 and 1 additional cryptic exons in introns 2 and 3, respec...