Your browser version may not work well with NCBI's Web applications. More information here...
1: Nucleic Acids Res. 2005 Sep 7;33(16):5053-62. Print 2005.
Related Articles, Links
Click here to read Click here to read Click here to read
Distribution of SR protein exonic splicing enhancer motifs in human protein-coding genes.

Wang J, Smith PJ, Krainer AR, Zhang MQ.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA.

Exonic splicing enhancers (ESEs) are pre-mRNA cis-acting elements required for splice-site recognition. We previously developed a web-based program called ESEfinder that scores any sequence for the presence of ESE motifs recognized by the human SR proteins SF2/ASF, SRp40, SRp55 and SC35 (http://rulai.cshl.edu/tools/ESE/). Using ESEfinder, we have undertaken a large-scale analysis of ESE motif distribution in human protein-coding genes. Significantly higher frequencies of ESE motifs were observed in constitutive internal protein-coding exons, compared with both their flanking intronic regions and with pseudo exons. Statistical analysis of ESE motif frequency distributions revealed a complex relationship between splice-site strength and increased or decreased frequencies of particular SR protein motifs. Comparison of constitutively and alternatively spliced exons demonstrated slightly weaker splice-site scores, as well as significantly fewer ESE motifs, in the alternatively spliced group. Our results underline the importance of ESE-mediated SR protein function in the process of exon definition, in the context of both constitutive splicing and regulated alternative splicing.

Publication Types:
PMID: 16147989 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC1201331