title: Investigating alternative RNA splicing in Xenopus.
abstract: Alternative splicing, the process by which distinct mature mRNAs can be produced from a single primary transcript, is a key mechanism to increase the organism complexity. The generation of alternative splicing pattern is a means to expand the proteome diversity and also to control gene expression through the regulation of mRNA abundance. Alternative splicing is therefore particularly prevalent during development and accordingly numerous splicing events are regulated in a tissue or temporal manner. To study the roles of alternative splicing during developmental processes and decipher the molecular mechanisms that underlie temporal and spatial regulation, it is important to develop in vivo whole animal studies. In this chapter, we present the advantages of using the amphibian Xenopus as a fully in vivo model to study alternative splicing and we describe the experimental procedures that can be used with Xenopus laevis embryos and oocytes to define the cis-regulatory elements and identify the associated trans-acting factors.
authors.affiliation: UMR 6061 CNRS-Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Agnès
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mereau
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hardy
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin / Q000008:administration & dosage; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D055785:Gene Knockdown Techniques; D008297:Male; D008845:Microinjections; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D060172:Morpholinos / Q000235:genetics; D009865:Oocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D009928:Organ Specificity; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional; D012102:Reproductive Control Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D029867:Xenopus Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014982:Xenopus laevis / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D006063:Chorionic Gonadotropin; D060172:Morpholinos; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D012102:Reproductive Control Agents; D029867:Xenopus Proteins