Mechanisms of alternative splicing regulation: insights from molecular and genomics approaches

Alternative splicing is an important gene regulatory mechanism for generating proteomic diversity, which markedly affects human development and is misregulated in many human diseases. Alternative splicing can be regulated at different stages of spliceosome assembly and by different mechanisms. Alternative splicing of mRNA precursors provides an important means of genetic control and is a crucial step in the expression of most genes. Alternative splicing markedly affects human development, and its misregulation underlies many human diseases. Although the mechanisms of alternative splicing have been studied extensively, until the past few years we had not begun to realize fully the diversity and complexity of alternative splicing regulation by an intricate protein–RNA network. Great progress has been made by studying individual transcripts and through genome-wide approaches, which together provide a better picture of the mechanistic regulation of alternative pre-mRNA splicing.