title: Conservation and regulation of alternative splicing by dynamic inter- and intra-intron base pairings in Lepidoptera 14-3-3ξ pre-mRNAs.
abstract: Alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs greatly contributes to diversity in products generated from a single gene. However, the underlying regulatory mechanisms are poorly understood. In the present study, we describe evolutionarily conserved intra-intronic and inter-intronic RNA secondary structures. Mutation experiments revealed that intra-intronic RNA secondary structure causes steric hindrance to enforce mutual splicing exclusivity, while inter-intronic RNA pairing largely functions through a looped-out mechanism. Moreover, mutually exclusive splicing may be regulated by RNA pairing competition between intra- and inter-introns. Importantly, the resulting dynamic RNA architecture largely controls mutually exclusive splicing, although cis-acting regulatory sequences may fine-tune this process. Our results emphasize the importance of dynamic RNA architecture in alternative splicing.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry, College of life Sciences, Zhejiang University (Zijingang Campus), 688 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Xuebin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.forename: Wenfeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wenjing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Leilei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Yongfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
mesh_terms: D048948:14-3-3 Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000818:Animals; D020029:Base Pairing; D001483:Base Sequence; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D007438:Introns; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences; D007915:Lepidoptera / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012322:RNA Precursors / Q000235:genetics*; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D048948:14-3-3 Proteins; D019476:Insect Proteins; D012322:RNA Precursors