Am. Pret et My. Fiszman, SEQUENCE DIVERGENCE ASSOCIATED WITH SPECIES-SPECIFIC SPLICING OF THE NONMUSCLE BETA-TROPOMYOSIN ALTERNATIVE EXON, The Journal of biological chemistry, 271(19), 1996, pp. 11511-11517
Alternative splicing of vertebrate beta-tropomyosin transcripts ensure
s mutually exclusive expression of internal exons 6A and 6B in nonmusc
le and skeletal muscle cells, respectively. Recently, we reported that
this splicing regulation requires species-specific elements, since th
e splicing profile for the chicken, rat, and Xenopus beta-tropomyosin
alternative exons is not reproduced in transfection experiments when h
eterologous myogenic cells are used. By analyzing the splicing pattern
of hybrid chicken/rat beta-TM constructions transfected into both qua
il and mouse cell lines, we demonstrate that chicken beta-tropomyosin
exon 6A is flanked by stronger splicing signals than rat exon 6A, thus
leading to the misregulation of splicing in heterologous cells. We ha
ve characterized three splicing signals that contribute to this differ
ence: 1) nonconsensus nucleotide differences at positions +4 and +6 in
the donor site downstream of exon 6A, 2) differences in the pyrimidin
e composition between the branch site and acceptor site upstream of ex
on 6A, and 3) a pyrimidine-rich intronic exon 6A splicing enhancer pre
sent upstream of exon 6A only in the chicken beta-TM gene. The functio
nal divergence between splicing signals in two homologous vertebrate g
enes reveals species-specific strategies for proper modulation of spli
cing of alternative exons.