Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells
10:06

Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells

Published on: April 26, 2017

Alternative splicing increases complexity of stem cell transcriptome

Ihor R Lemischka1, Moshe Pritsker

  • 1Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA. ilemischka@molbio.princeton.edu

Cell Cycle (Georgetown, Tex.)
|February 16, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Alternative splicing significantly impacts stem cell biology, affecting thousands of genes in embryonic and hematopoietic stem cells. This process, particularly in tissue-specific genes, offers new avenues for understanding stem cell therapies.

Area of Science:

  • Stem cell biology
  • Molecular biology
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Stem cell therapies require understanding stem cell properties.
  • Microarray studies identified activated genes but not post-transcriptional modifications.
  • The role of alternative splicing in stem cell transcriptomes was largely undetermined.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the extent of alternative splicing in stem cell transcriptomes.
  • To identify mechanisms regulating alternative splicing in stem cells.
  • To discuss the implications of alternative splicing for stem cell biology and therapies.

Main Methods:

  • Combined computational and experimental analyses.
  • Analysis of gene expression in hematopoietic and embryonic stem cells.
  • Identification of alternative splicing events and regulatory mechanisms.

Main Results:

  • Thousands of genes in stem cells undergo alternative splicing.
  • Alternative splicing is more frequent in tissue-specific genes than ubiquitous genes.
  • Negative regulation of splicing sites is a common mechanism for generating splice variants.
  • Alternative splicing is not conserved between human and mouse orthologous genes.

Conclusions:

  • Alternative splicing plays a significant role in stem cell biology.
  • Understanding alternative splicing is crucial for developing stem cell-based therapies.
  • Genome-wide identification of splice variants is a key future direction.

More Related Videos

Detection of Alternative Splicing During Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition11:48

Detection of Alternative Splicing During Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition

Published on: October 9, 2014

Using the E1A Minigene Tool to Study mRNA Splicing Changes10:25

Using the E1A Minigene Tool to Study mRNA Splicing Changes

Published on: April 22, 2021

Related Concept Videos

Alternative RNA Splicing02:18

Alternative RNA Splicing

Alternative RNA splicing is the regulated splicing of exons and introns to produce different mature mRNAs from a single pre-mRNA. Unlike in constitutive splicing where a single gene produces a single type of mRNA, alternative splicing allows an organism to produce multiple proteins from a single gene and plays an important role in protein diversity.
There are five types of alternative RNA splicing that vary in the ways the pre-mRNA segments are removed or retained in the mature mRNA. The first...
Alternative RNA Splicing02:18

Alternative RNA Splicing

Alternative RNA splicing is the regulated splicing of exons and introns to produce different mature mRNAs from a single pre-mRNA. Unlike in constitutive splicing where a single gene produces a single type of mRNA, alternative splicing allows an organism to produce multiple proteins from a single gene and plays an important role in protein diversity.
There are five types of alternative RNA splicing that vary in the ways the pre-mRNA segments are removed or retained in the mature mRNA. The first...
RNA Splicing01:32

RNA Splicing

Splicing is the process by which eukaryotic RNA is edited before its translation into protein. The RNA strand transcribed from eukaryotic DNA is called the primary transcript. The primary transcripts that become mRNAs are called precursor messenger RNAs (pre-mRNAs). Eukaryotic pre-mRNA contains alternating sequences of exons and introns. Exons are nucleotide sequences that code for proteins, whereas introns are the non-coding regions. In RNA splicing, introns are removed and exons are bonded...
RNA Splicing01:32

RNA Splicing

Splicing is the process by which eukaryotic RNA is edited before its translation into protein. The RNA strand transcribed from eukaryotic DNA is called the primary transcript. The primary transcripts that become mRNAs are called precursor messenger RNAs (pre-mRNAs). Eukaryotic pre-mRNA contains alternating sequences of exons and introns. Exons are nucleotide sequences that code for proteins, whereas introns are the non-coding regions. In RNA splicing, introns are removed and exons are bonded...
Pre-mRNA Processing: RNA Splicing01:32

Pre-mRNA Processing: RNA Splicing

Splicing is the process by which eukaryotic RNA is edited before its translation into protein. The RNA strand transcribed from eukaryotic DNA is called the primary transcript. The primary transcripts that become mRNAs are called precursor messenger RNAs (pre-mRNAs). Eukaryotic pre-mRNA contains alternating sequences of exons and introns. Exons are nucleotide sequences that code for proteins, whereas introns are the non-coding regions. In RNA splicing, introns are removed and exons are bonded...
Chromatin Structure Regulates pre-mRNA Processing02:41

Chromatin Structure Regulates pre-mRNA Processing

In eukaryotic cells, nascent mRNA transcripts need to undergo many post-transcriptional modifications to reach the cell cytoplasm and translate into functional proteins. For a long time, transcription and pre-mRNA processing were considered two independent events that occur sequentially in the cell. However, it has now been well established that transcription and pre-mRNA processing are two simultaneous processes that are precisely regulated inside the cell.
The chromatin structure, especially...