The search for alternative splicing regulators: new approaches offer a path to a splicing code

Complex multicellular organisms require a diverse set of proteins to set the form and function of specialized cell types.The availability of complete genomic sequences has revealed that instead of a large increase in the number of protein coding genes compared with unicellular organisms, more complex eukaryotes instead obtain more diversity out of a relatively limited number of genes through the process of alternative splicing (AS).AS results in the cell type-, developmental stage-, sex-, or signal-regulated changes in composition of an mRNA produced from a given gene, brought about by changes in splice site choice (Black 2003;Matlin et al. 2005).