Research interest

The split nature of eukaryotic genes offers the possibility to expand the coding capacity of genomes during mRNA maturation by splicing transcripts in various ways - thus generating multiple mRNAs and proteins from a single gene.

In metazoa, two parallel splicing machineries - a major and a minor spliceosome - have been discovered and at least 60% of human genes give rise to alternative splicing. Appropriate spatial and temporal generation of splice variants demands alternative splicing be subject to extensive regulation. Misregulation of alternative splicing of several genes has been implicated in human disease, including tumorigenesis and tumor progression.

We wish to understand how pre-mRNA splicing can be regulated by instructive extracellular cues in physiological and pathological conditions and what is the functional relevance of having two splicing systems in eukaryotic organisms.