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Relative exon affinities and suboptimal splice site signals lead to non-equivalence of two cassette exons

1995; Oxford University Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 17 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/nar/23.17.3585

1362-4962

Athena Andreadis, Jennifer A. Broderick, Kenneth S. Kosik,

Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques

Tau is a microtubule-associated protein whose transcript undegoes complex regulated splicing in the mammalian nervous system. Exons 2 and 3 of the gene are alternatively spliced cassettes in which exon 3 never appears independently of exon 2. Expression of tau minigene constructs in cells indicate that exon 2 resembles a constitutive exon, while a suboptimal branch point connected to exon 3 inhibits inclusion of exon 3 in the mRNA. Splicing of the two tau exons is controlled by their relative affinities for each other versus the affinities of their flanking exons for them.