RON is a proto-oncogene that induces cell dissociation, migration and matrix invasion. RON∆160, a splicing variant of RON, is a natural splicing product in colon cancers that is produced through skipping of exons 5 and 6 in alternative splicing process. RON∆160 promotes cellular transformation in vitro and tumor formation in vivo. We present, here...

ctional neuroi ging of human emo : Asymmetric co su

Tenascin-C has been implicated in regulation of neurite outgrowth both during development and after injury; however, its role as permissive vs inhibitory remains controversial. We report that different tenascin splice variants may have dramatically different impacts on neuronal growth. In a cell culture model, the largest and smallest splice variants (TN.L and TN.S) of human tenascin both promo...

The vast majority of genes are alternatively spliced and produce a variety of mature transcripts. These transcript variants often encode proteins with different structures and functions, and changes in the expression of variants from the same gene can lead to profound biological effects (reviewed in 1). Various transcriptional events, including splicing from alternative 5’ or 3’ splice-sites, e...

The Mdm2 oncoprotein physically associates with p53 and antagonizes its tumor suppressor functions. Previous studies indicate that some tumors express alternatively or aberrantly spliced Mdm2 variants that are unable to bind p53, but whether these actively contribute to carcinogenesis or are a byproduct of cancer progression has been unclear. In this study, we examined the ability of full-lengt...

Human Long interspersed element-1 (L1) retrotransposons contain an internal RNA polymerase II promoter within their 5' untranslated region (UTR) and encode two proteins, (ORF1p and ORF2p) required for their mobilization (i.e., retrotransposition). The evolutionary success of L1 relies on the continuous retrotransposition of full-length L1 mRNAs. Previous studies identified functional splice don...