The Splicing Code

Splicing is a key cellular mechanism capable of generating multiple transcript isoforms from a single gene, thus diversifying gene function to fulfill needs of a wide range of physiological processes under different environmental conditions. Reprogramming of cellular processes often require complex and interrelated changes in molecular regulatory patterns and alternative splicing plays an important role in orchestrating such designs. Hence, understanding organismal physiology at molecular level would necessitate a better understanding of alternative splicing. This comprehensive book covers every facet of constitutive and alternative splicing, detailing molecular mechanisms of regulation and dysregulation, relevance in health and disease, and current innovations for investigation and therapeutic targeting. These include delineating how RNA consensus sequences and secondary and tertiary structures play a key role in remodeling splicing landscape and how chromatin state and co-transcriptional regulations influence the alternative splicing dynamics. This book also explores how cells have adapted to fashion unconventional cytoplasmic splicing pathways to the midst to achieve greater control over splicing phenotypes to ensure cell fitness by crafting an intelligent stress response, and the different surveillance measures cells employ to perform mRNA quality control to correct for splicing errors and prevent any negative consequences arising from them. The conceptual framework provided in this book will strengthen the biomedicine field's efforts in investigating alternative splicing mechanisms and developing therapeutics through better understanding of the fundamental aspects of the splicing code.