Hitting between the exons

Microarrays generally do not incorporate reliable methods for studying gene expression patterns arising from alternative RNA splicing. But RNA splicing can lead to therapeutically relevant changes in gene expression. ExonHit Therapeutics S.A. has a technology for detecting RNA splicing that the company hopes will become the basis for new microarrays.

Alternative RNA splicing is a normal post-transcriptional process that occurs prior to mRNA translation. Initially, genes are transcribed from genomic DNA into pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA). Pre-mRNA contains two types of nucleic acid sequences: introns and exons. Introns are removed during pre-mRNA processing, one step of which is RNA splicing. Exons are most often retained within the mature mRNA. However, not all exons from the pre-mRNA are retained. ...