The mouse and human Liprin-α family of scaffolding proteins: Genomic organization, expression profiling and regulation by alternative splicing

In the nervous system the Liprin-α protein family plays an important role in the regulation of dendrite development, the targeting of photoreceptor axons, and the formation and structure of synapses. To gain a better understanding of Liprin-α regulation we have comparatively analyzed the genomic organization of the human and mouse Liprin-α genes, characterized the alternative exon use in human and mouse, and studied their expression in adult rodent tissues and brain regions. Our results show that Liprins-α1–4 share multiple properties in their genomic structure, exhibit an identical modular organization, and are highly conserved within certain structural domains, indicating strong evolutionary cohesion. We demonstrate that all Liprin-α genes are subject to alternative splicing, which is regulated in a developmental manner. Interestingly, regulation via alternative splicing is not conserved between isoforms and across species and represents a post-transcriptional mechanism to independently diversify the properties of the individual isoforms.