ArticleGenome research2015
Unmasking alternative splicing inside protein-coding exons defines exitrons and their role in proteome plasticity.
Article in Genome research, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 99 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
99 citing papers in PubMed, 168 citations in OpenAlex.
- ALS-associated exitron splicing produces UBQLN2 isoforms with distinct properties.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Interpretable machine learning enables de novo mapping of cell type-specific RNA splicing regulation from scRNA-seq data.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The splice of life: an isoform-centric view of disease, technology, and therapeutics.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Review
- Impact of alternative splicing on Arabidopsis proteome.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Alternative splicing: an underexplored layer in immune receptor regulation, systemic resistance and priming.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Longer internal exons tend to have more tandem repeats and more frequently experience insertions and deletions.Life science alliance · 2025Article
- Conservation and Remodeling of Alternative Splicing Landscapes in the Evolution ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- New dimensions in the molecular genetics of insect chemoreception.Trends in genetics : TIG · 2025Review
- At-RS31 orchestrates hierarchical cross-regulation of splicing factors and integrates alternative splicing with TOR-ABA pathways.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Global dysregulation of circular RNAs in frontal cortex and whole blood from DM1 and DM2.Human genetics · 2025Article
- Steering research on mRNA splicing in cancer towards clinical translation.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2024Review
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- Exitron splicing of odor receptor genes inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Importance of pre-mRNA splicing and its study tools in plants.Advanced biotechnology · 2024Review
- Exitrons: offering new roles to retained introns-the novel regulators of protein diversity and utility.AoB PLANTS · 2024Review
- Responsive Alternative Splicing Events ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
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- Do not panic: An intron-centric guide to alternative splicing.The Plant cell · 2023Review
- Cotranscriptional RNA processing and modification in plants.The Plant cell · 2023Review
39 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on byEnter exitrons.2015
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Alternative splicing (AS) diversifies transcriptomes and proteomes and is widely recognized as a key mechanism for regulating gene expression. Previously, in an analysis of intron retention events in Arabidopsis, we found unusual AS events inside annotated protein-coding exons. Here, we also identify such AS events in human and use these two sets to analyse their features, regulation, functional impact, and evolutionary origin. As these events involve introns with features of both introns and protein-coding exons, we name them exitrons (exonic introns). Though exitrons were detected as a subset of retained introns, they are clearly distinguishable, and their splicing results in transcripts with different fates. About half of the 1002 Arabidopsis and 923 human exitrons have sizes of multiples of 3 nucleotides (nt). Splicing of these exitrons results in internally deleted proteins and affects protein domains, disordered regions, and various post-translational modification sites, thus broadly impacting protein function. Exitron splicing is regulated across tissues, in response to stress and in carcinogenesis. Intriguingly, annotated intronless genes can be also alternatively spliced via exitron usage. We demonstrate that at least some exitrons originate from ancestral coding exons. Based on our findings, we propose a "splicing memory" hypothesis whereby upon intron loss imprints of former exon borders defined by vestigial splicing regulatory elements could drive the evolution of exitron splicing. Altogether, our studies show that exitron splicing is a conserved strategy for increasing proteome plasticity in plants and animals, complementing the repertoire of AS events.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.