Regulation of tau exon 10 splicing by a double stem-loop structure in mouse intron 10

Tau exon 10 (E10) splicing is a crucial event in its developmental change of tau isoform and tauopathy. To investigate the splicing mechanism, we isolated and compared mouse tau genomic sequence with human sequence. We identified a new element in mouse intron 10 (I10) to suppress E10 splicing, which was located just after the stem-loop region previously proposed in human sequence and found to potentially form another stem-loop. Human I10 with a mutation (+29G to A) causing a decreased E10 splicing was also predicted to form similar double stem-loop, suggesting that this element is universally involved in regulation of E10 splicing.