Speaker: Manuel Ares, University of California, Santa Cruz professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology

Title: Mechanisms that influence splicing decisions

Abstract: RNA splicing is an enigmatic and essential step in eukaryotic gene expression that is catalyzed by a complex of protein and RNAs called the spliceosome. Among the many outstanding questions about splicing are:
• How does the spliceosome know where an intron is?
• How are specific short and information poor sequences at the sites of RNA catalysis  selected with such high fidelity?
• Where do introns come from?
In particular, I will focus on the mechanism of branchpoint recognition by the U2 snRNP, a key step in the process that restricts selection of the 3’ splice site, a process that is disrupted in certain cancers. I will also entertain some relatively undeveloped hypotheses to explain emerging results that link transcription and pre-mRNA competition to splicing regulation, and if there is time will describe our effort to observe the birth of new introns.

Host: Stephen Howell, Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor

Meeting link: https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/j.php?MTID=mb238d165439455f48123c9a3d116aef8

April 27, 2021, GDCB Seminar (Manuel Ares)