Background: b-Thalassemia is a common autosomal recessive disorder in human caused by a defect in b-globin chain synthesis. The most common mutations causing b-Thalassemia have been found to be splicing mutations. Most of which activate aberrant cryptic splicing/sites without complete disruption of normal splicing. IVSI-110 mutation, a common splicing mutation, leads to a 90% reduction of norma...

Nucleic acid therapeutics have demonstrated an impressive acceleration in recent years. They work through multiple mechanisms of action, including the downregulation gene expression and modulation RNA splicing. While several drugs based on former mechanism been approved, few target latter, despite promise splicing modulation. To improve our ability to discover novel splicing-modulating therapie...

presentations Zammarchi F. et al. Redirection of STAT3 alternative splicing: a novel anti-tumoral approach. 3nd annual postdoctoral research symposium, Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, U.S.A. (2009). Zammarchi F. et al. Modulation of STAT3 alternative splicing as a tool to dissect its antitumorigenic potential. RNA Society’s 2010 Annual Meeting, Seattle, (2010). Zammarchi F. et...

RATIONALE Vascular smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotypic modulation is characterized by the downregulation of SMC contractile genes. Platelet-derived growth factor-BB, a well-known stimulator of SMC phenotypic modulation, downregulates SMC genes via posttranscriptional regulation. The underlying mechanisms, however, remain largely unknown. OBJECTIVE To establish RNA editing as a novel mechanism...

Alternative splicing can alter genome sequence and as a consequence, many genes change to oncogenes. This event can also affect protein function and diversity. The growing number of study elucidate the pathological influence of impaired alternative splicing events on numerous disease including cancer. Here, we would like to highlight the significant role of alternative splicing in cancer biolog...

CD28 is the major costimulatory receptor required for activation of naïve T cells, yet CD28 costimulation affects the expression level of surprisingly few genes over those altered by TCR stimulation alone. Alternate splicing of genes adds diversity to the proteome and contributes to tissue-specific regulation of genes. Here we demonstrate that CD28 costimulation leads to major changes in altern...

BACKGROUND Slow delayed-rectifier potassium current (IKs) channels, made of the pore-forming KCNQ1 and auxiliary KCNE1 subunits, play a key role in determining action potential duration (APD) in cardiac myocytes. The consequences of drug-induced KCNQ1 splice alteration remain unknown. OBJECTIVE To study the modulation of KCNQ1 alternative splicing by amiloride and the consequent changes in IK...

Even though it is increasingly evident that post-transcriptional events like mRNA processing and splicing may regulate gene expression and proteome diversity of malaria parasite Plasmodium, molecular mechanisms that regulate events like mRNA splicing in malaria parasite are poorly understood. Protein kinases control a wide variety of cellular events in almost all eukaryotes, including modulatio...