title: Pre-mRNA splicing: where and when in the nucleus.
abstract: Alternative splicing is a process to differentially link exon regions in a single precursor mRNA to produce two or more different mature mRNAs, a strategy frequently used by higher eukaryotic cells to increase proteome diversity and/or enable additional post-transcriptional control of gene expression. This process can take place either co-transcriptionally or post-transcriptionally. When and where RNA splicing takes place in the cell represents a central question of cell biology; co-transcriptional splicing allows functional integration of transcription and RNA processing machineries, and could allow them to modulate one another, whereas post-transcriptional splicing could facilitate coupling RNA splicing with downstream events such as RNA export to create additional layers for regulated gene expression. This review focuses on recent advances in co- and post-transcriptional RNA splicing and proposes a new paradigm that some specific coupling events contribute to genome organization in higher eukaryotic cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0651, USA.
authors.forename: Joonhee
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiang-Dong
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Fu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D055162:Biocatalysis; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D012322:RNA Precursors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D012326:RNA Splicing; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D012322:RNA Precursors