The functional modulation of epigenetic regulators by alternative splicing

  1. Sergio Lois 1
  2. Noemí Blanco García 1
  3. María Ángeles Martínez Balbás 1
  4. Xavier de la Cruz 2
  1. 1 Instituto de Biología Molecular de Barcelona
    info

    Instituto de Biología Molecular de Barcelona

    Barcelona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/05t8khn72

  2. 2 IRB Barcelona - Institute for Research in Biomedicine
    info

    IRB Barcelona - Institute for Research in Biomedicine

    Barcelona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01z1gye03

Revista:
BMC Genomics

Año de publicación: 2007

Volumen: 8

Tipo: Artículo

GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Resumen

BackgroundEpigenetic regulators (histone acetyltransferases, methyltransferases, chromatin-remodelling enzymes, etc) play a fundamental role in the control of gene expression by modifying the local state of chromatin. However, due to their recent discovery, little is yet known about their own regulation. This paper addresses this point, focusing on alternative splicing regulation, a mechanism already known to play an important role in other protein families, e.g. transcription factors, membrane receptors, etc.ResultsTo this end, we compiled the data available on the presence/absence of alternative splicing for a set of 160 different epigenetic regulators, taking advantage of the relatively large amount of unexplored data on alternative splicing available in public databases. We found that 49 % (70 % in human) of these genes express more than one transcript. We then studied their alternative splicing patterns, focusing on those changes affecting the enzyme's domain composition. In general, we found that these sequence changes correspond to different mechanisms, either repressing the enzyme's function (e.g. by creating dominant-negative inhibitors of the functional isoform) or creating isoforms with new functions.ConclusionWe conclude that alternative splicing of epigenetic regulators can be an important tool for the function modulation of these enzymes. Considering that the latter control the transcriptional state of large sets of genes, we propose that epigenetic regulation of gene expression is itself strongly regulated by alternative splicing.

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