2 Alternative pre-mRNA Splicing 17 2.1 Alternative Splicing and its Role in Regulating Gene Activities and Generating Genetic Diversity 17 2.1.1 Different Patterns of Alternative Splicing 17 2.1.2 Alternative Splicing and Genetic Diversity 18 2.2 Mechanisms Underlying Alternative Splicing Regulation 19 2.2.1 Splicing Signals and Splicing Regulatory Elements 20 2.2.2 Trans-acting Splicing Regula...

How species with similar repertoires of protein-coding genes differ so markedly at the phenotypic level is poorly understood. By comparing organ transcriptomes from vertebrate species spanning ~350 million years of evolution, we observed significant differences in alternative splicing complexity between vertebrate lineages, with the highest complexity in primates. Within 6 million years, the sp...

Cell-based splicing of minigenes is used extensively in the analysis of alternative splicing events. In particular, such assays are critical for identifying or confirming the in vivo relevance of cis- and trans-acting factors in the regulation of particular splicing patterns. Here we provide detailed information on the methods specific to the cell-based analysis of minigene splicing. In additio...

Alternative splicing has recently emerged as one of the most significant generators of functional complexity in several relatively well-studied animal genomes, but little is known about the extent of this phenomenon in higher plants. However, recent computational and experimental studies discussed here suggest that alternative splicing probably plays a far more significant role in the generatio...

Alu repetitive elements can be inserted into mature messenger RNAs via a splicing-mediated process termed exonization. To understand the molecular basis and the regulation of the process of turning intronic Alus into new exons, we compiled and analyzed a data set of human exonized Alus. We revealed a mechanism that governs 3' splice-site selection in these exons during alternative splicing. On ...

Recent estimates of the frequency of alternative splicing in human genes, in conjunction with recent estimates of the number of genes in the human genome, have confirmed that alternative splicing plays a critical role in human genetic complexity. However, despite this recent interest in alternative splicing as a fundamental genetic mechanism, and despite numerous experimentally confirmed exampl...