Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10884584 | Biosystems | 2013 | 8 Pages |
Abstract
Alternative splicing (AS) of pre-mRNAs in higher eukaryotes and several viruses is one major source of protein diversity. Usually, the following major subtypes of AS are distinguished: exon skipping, intron retention, and alternative 3â² and 5â² splice sites. Moreover, mutually exclusive exons (MXEs) represent a rare subtype. In the splicing of MXEs, two (or more) splicing events are not independent anymore, but are executed or disabled in a coordinated manner. In this review, several bioinformatics approaches for analyzing MXEs are presented and discussed. In particular, we revisit suitable definitions and nomenclatures, and bioinformatics tools for finding MXEs, adjacent and non-adjacent MXEs, clustered and grouped MXEs. Moreover, the molecular mechanisms for splicing MXEs proposed in the literature are reviewed and discussed.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Mathematics
Modelling and Simulation
Authors
Martin Pohl, Ralf H. Bortfeldt, Konrad Grützmann, Stefan Schuster,