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Updated: Sep 26, 2025

Detection of Alternative Splicing During Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition
Published on: October 9, 2014
Multilayered regulations of alternative splicing, NMD, and protein stability control temporal induction and
John K Vuong1, Volkan Ergin1, Liang Chen2
1Division of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA.
Abstract:
The gene regulation underlying axon formation and its exclusiveness to neurons remains elusive. TRIM46 is postulated to determine axonal fate. We show Trim46 mRNA is expressed before axonogenesis, but TRIM46 protein level is inhibited by alternative splicing of two cassette exons coupled separately to stability controls of Trim46 mRNA and proteins, effectively inducing functional knockout of TRIM46 proteins. Exon 8 inclusion causes nonsense-mediated mRNA decay of Trim46 transcripts. PTBP2-mediated exon 10 skipping produces transcripts encoding unstable TRIM46 proteins. During axonogenesis, transcriptional activation, decreased exon 8 inclusion, and enhanced exon 10 inclusion converge to increase TRIM46 proteins, leading to its neural-specific expression. Genetic deletion of these exons alters TRIM46 protein levels and shows TRIM46 is instructive though not always required for AnkG localization nor a determinant of AnkG density. Therefore, two concurrently but independently regulated alternative exons orchestrate the temporal induction and tissue-specific expression of TRIM46 proteins to mediate axon formation.
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