From a large-scale screen using splicing microarrays and RT-PCR, we identified 63 alternative splicing (AS) events that are coordinated in 3 distinct temporal patterns during mouse heart development. More than half of these splicing transitions are evolutionarily conserved between mouse and chicken. Computational analysis of the introns flanking these splicing events identified enriched and conserved motifs including binding sites for CUGBP and ETR-3-like factors (CELF), muscleblind-like (MBNL) and Fox proteins. We show that CELF proteins are down-regulated >10-fold during heart development, and MBNL1 protein is concomitantly up-regulated nearly 4-fold. Using transgenic and knockout mice, we show that reproducing the embryonic expression patterns for CUGBP1 and MBNL1 in adult heart induces the embryonic splicing patterns for more than half of the developmentally regulated AS transitions. These findings indicate that CELF and MBNL proteins are determinative for a large subset of splicing transitions that occur during postnatal heart development.CUGBP and ETR-3-like factors ͉ heart development ͉ muscleblind-like ͉ splicing microarray C oordinated control of alternative splicing (AS) on a genomewide scale has the potential to drive proteome transitions with wide-ranging and critical biological consequences (1, 2). Disruption of splicing and its regulation, therefore, is implicated in disease causation and susceptibility (3). Splicing is regulated by RNAbinding proteins that bind to cis-regulatory elements near the splice sites. Some of the best-characterized splicing regulators include the serine-arginine (SR)-rich family, hnRNP proteins, and the Nova, PTB, FOX, TIA, CUGBP and ETR-3-like factors (CELF), and muscleblind-like (MBNL) families (4, 5). CELF and MBNL proteins were first characterized as factors involved in the pathogenesis of myotonic dystrophy and were subsequently shown to be direct regulators of AS (6-8). Recent advances in microarray and computational technologies have allowed comprehensive analyses of individual exons on a genome-wide scale, providing the ability to identify commonly regulated splicing events (9-12).With some exceptions (13,14), most large-scale analyses of regulated splicing have focused primarily on differences between adult tissues and tissues/cell cultures depleted for a splicing regulator rather than normal physiological transitions within a single tissue (9)(10)(11)15). Developmental transitions provide an excellent opportunity to identify and determine the roles for coordinated splicing regulation associated with normal physiological change. The vertebrate heart is particularly attractive for such analysis because it undergoes extensive remodeling to meet the demands of increased workload in the developing organism (16). In addition, the heart has relatively low cellular complexity and little cell turnover (17) so that developmental splicing transitions reflect changes occurring within individual cells to a greater extent than in many other tissues. The physiological changes ...

Genome-wide analyses of metazoan transcriptomes have revealed an unexpected level of mRNA diversity that is generated by alternative splicing. Recently, regulatory networks have been identified through which splicing promotes dynamic remodeling of the transcriptome to promote physiological changes, which involve robust and coordinated alternative splicing transitions. The regulation of splicing in yeast, worms, flies and vertebrates affects a variety of biological processes. The functional classes of genes that are regulated by alternative splicing include both those with widespread homeostatic activities and genes with cell-type-specific functions. Alternative splicing can drive determinative physiological change or can have a permissive role by providing mRNA variability that is utilized by other regulatory mechanisms.

Alternative cleavage and polyadenylation (APA) results in mRNA isoforms containing different 3’ untranslated regions (3’UTRs) and/or coding sequences. How core cleavage/polyadenylation (C/P) factors regulate APA is not well understood. Using siRNA knockdown coupled with deep sequencing, we found that several C/P factors can play significant roles in 3’UTR-APA. Whereas Pcf11 and Fip1 enhance usage of proximal poly(A) sites (pAs), CFI-25/68, PABPN1 and PABPC1 promote usage of distal pAs. Strong cis element biases were found for pAs regulated by CFI-25/68 or Fip1, and the distance between pAs plays an important role in APA regulation. In addition, intronic pAs are substantially regulated by splicing factors, with U1 mostly inhibiting C/P events in introns near the 5’ end of gene and U2 suppressing those in introns with features for efficient splicing. Furthermore, PABPN1 inhibits expression of transcripts with pAs near the transcription start site (TSS), a property possibly related to its role in RNA degradation. Finally, we found that groups of APA events regulated by C/P factors are also modulated in cell differentiation and development with distinct trends. Together, our results support an APA code where an APA event in a given cellular context is regulated by a number of parameters, including relative location to the TSS, splicing context, distance between competing pAs, surrounding cis elements and concentrations of core C/P factors.

Alternative pre–messenger RNA splicing impacts development, physiology, and disease, but its regulation in humans is not well understood, partially due to the limited scale to which the expression of specific splicing events has been measured. We generated the first genome-scale expression compendium of human alternative splicing events using custom whole-transcript microarrays monitoring expression of 24,426 alternative splicing events in 48 diverse human samples. Over 11,700 genes and 9,500 splicing events were differentially expressed, providing a rich resource for studying splicing regulation. An unbiased, systematic screen of 21,760 4-mer to 7-mer words for cis-regulatory motifs identified 143 RNA 'words' enriched near regulated cassette exons, including six clusters of motifs represented by UCUCU, UGCAUG, UGCU, UGUGU, UUUU, and AGGG, which map to trans-acting regulators PTB, Fox, Muscleblind, CELF/CUG-BP, TIA-1, and hnRNP F/H, respectively. Each cluster showed a distinct pattern of genomic location and tissue specificity. For example, UCUCU occurs 110 to 35 nucleotides preceding cassette exons upregulated in brain and striated muscle but depleted in other tissues. UCUCU and UGCAUG appear to have similar function but independent action, occurring 5' and 3', respectively, of 33% of the cassette exons upregulated in skeletal muscle but co-occurring for only 2%.

During postnatal development the heart undergoes a rapid and dramatic transition to adult function through transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms, including alternative splicing (AS). Here we perform deep RNA-sequencing on RNA from cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts to conduct a high-resolution analysis of transcriptome changes during postnatal mouse heart development. We reveal extensive changes in gene expression and AS that occur primarily between postnatal days 1 and 28. Cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts show reciprocal regulation of gene expression reflecting differences in proliferative capacity, cell adhesion functions, and mitochondrial metabolism. We further demonstrate that AS plays a role in vesicular trafficking and membrane organization, These AS transitions are enriched among targets of two RNA-binding proteins, Celf1 and Mbnl1, which undergo developmentally regulated changes in expression. Vesicular trafficking genes affected by AS during normal development (when Celf1 is down-regulated) show a reversion to neonatal splicing patterns after Celf1 re-expression in adults. Short-term Celf1 induction in adult animals results in disrupted transverse tubule organization and calcium handling. These results identify potential roles for AS in multiple aspects of postnatal heart maturation, including vesicular trafficking and intracellular membrane dynamics.

An emerging body of evidence indicates that post-transcriptional gene regulation not only relies on the linear sequence of messenger RNAs but also on their folding into intricate secondary structures and on chemical modification of the RNA bases. These features, which are highly dynamic and interdependent, exert direct control over the transcriptome thereby influencing many aspects of cell function. Here, we consider that coupling of RNA modifications and structure actively shapes RNA-protein interactions through individual steps of gene expression.

Summary Alternative splicing plays important regulatory roles during periods of physiological change. During development a large number of genes coordinately express protein isoform transitions regulated by alternative splicing, however, the mechanisms that coordinate splicing and the functional integration of the resultant tissue-specific protein isoforms are typically unknown. Here we show that the conserved Rbfox2 RNA binding protein regulates 30% of the splicing transitions observed during myogenesis and is required for the specific step of myoblast fusion. Integration of Rbfox2-dependent splicing outcomes from RNA-seq with Rbfox2 iCLIP data identified Mef2d and Rock2 as Rbfox2 splicing targets. Restored activities of Mef2d and Rock2 rescued myoblast fusion in Rbfox2 depleted cultures demonstrating functional cooperation of protein isoforms generated by coordinated alterative splicing. The results demonstrate that coordinated alternative splicing by a single RNA binding protein modulates transcription (Mef2d) and cell signaling (Rock2) programs to drive tissue-specific functions (cell fusion) to promote a developmental transition.

Alternative splicing transitions have been identified recently as a conserved component of vertebrate heart remodeling during postnatal development. Here we report that the targeted deletion of Dicer, specifically in adult mouse myocardium, reveals the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating networks of postnatal splicing transitions and in maintaining adult splicing programs. We demonstrate a direct role for miR-23a/b in the dramatic postnatal down-regulation of CUGBP and ETR-3-like factor (CELF) proteins that regulate nearly half of developmentally regulated splicing transitions in the heart. These findings define a hierarchy in which rapid postnatal upregulation of specific miRNAs controls expression of alternative splicing regulators and the subsequent splicing transitions of their downstream targets.Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.Received December 7, 2009; revised version accepted February 17, 2010. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key components of posttranscriptional gene regulation with diverse roles in tissue development, differentiation, and homeostasis (van Rooij et al. 2007;Zhao et al. 2007;Bartel 2009). Mature miRNAs are formed by two sequential processing reactions: Primary transcripts of miRNA genes are first cleaved into hairpin-containing intermediates (pre-miRNAs) by the Drosha microprocessor complex, and pre-miRNAs are then processed into mature miRNAs by Dicer (Kim 2005). While miRNA-mediated regulation stimulates quantitative changes in protein and mRNA expression (Baek et al. 2008;Selbach et al. 2008), alternative pre-mRNA splicing controls qualitative gene output in the expression of diverse mRNA isoforms (Blencowe 2006). Recent genome-wide studies revealed that >90% of human intron-containing genes are alternatively spliced, and more than half of alternative splicing events differ between tissues, revealing an extensive level of regulation Pan et al. 2008;Wang et al. 2008).The mammalian heart undergoes a period of dramatic remodeling during the first 3 wk after birth that requires transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory programs not yet fully understood (Xu et al. 2005;Olson 2006). We recently identified a conserved set of alternative splicing transitions during mouse heart development, and demonstrated that nearly half are responsive to the CUGBP and ETR-3-like factor (CELF) family of splicing regulators . Two CELF proteins, CUGBP1 and CUGBP2, are highly expressed in the fetal heart, but are down-regulated >10 fold within 3 wk after birth without a change in mRNA levels.Here we used targeted deletion of the Dicer gene specifically in adult mouse myocardium to test the role of miRNAs in the mechanism of CELF protein downregulation during postnatal development. Both CELF proteins were dramatically up-regulated within 2 d of Dicer knockout, as was a subset of five other splicing regulators, while spliceosomal components and an additional set of splicing regulators were not affected. Using multiple independent assays, including antagomir delivery to adul...