BioE Seminar Series: The Secret Life of Introns
Thursday, September 16, 2021
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Virtual
Presenter
Tracy Johnson, PhD, Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Presidential Endowed Chair in Life Sciences, Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, HHMI Professor, University of California-Los Angeles
Pre-messenger RNA splicing is carried out by the spliceosome, a large ribonucleoprotein complex that is functionally conserved across eukaryotes. The spliceosome assembles onto pre-mRNA co-transcriptionally, raising important questions about how the process of transcription through a chromatin template influences spliceosome assembly and splicing outcomes. Moreover, regulation of the fate of both spliced and, unexpectedly, the unspliced RNA provides an elegant mechanism for controlling gene expression. Here we show that regulated intron removal and regulation of the fate of unspliced RNAs are crucial for the cell's response to its environment, with important implications for human health.
Contact
Michael Humphreys
michael.humphreys@duke.edu