The adaptive significance of unproductive alternative splicing in primates.

ABSTRACT: Alternative gene splicing is pervasive in metazoa, particularly in humans, where the majority of genes generate splice variant transcripts. Characterizing the biological significance of alternative transcripts is methodologically difficult since it is impractical to assess thousands of splice variants as to whether they actually encode proteins, whether these proteins are functional, or whether transcripts have a function independent of protein synthesis. Consequently, to elucidate the functional significance of splice variants and to investigate mechanisms underlying the fidelity of mRNA splicing, we used an indirect approach based on analyzing the evolutionary conservation of splice variants among species. Using DNA polymerase β as an indicator locus, we cloned and characterized the type

SUBMITTER: Skandalis A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2941109 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature