Mutually exclusive exon splicing of the cardiac calcium channel alpha 1 subunit gene generates developmentally regulated isoforms in the rat heart. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Several clones were isolated from a rat genomic library in order to further characterize a region of variability within the third membrane-spanning region of the fourth motif (IVS3) of the L-type voltage-dependent calcium channel. We report here that this diversity arises from alternative splicing of a primary transcript containing a single pair of adjacent exons each encoding a unique sequence for the IVS3 region. Definitive proof of a mutually exclusive splicing mechanism was obtained by genomic mapping of flanking upstream and downstream exons and by extensive sequence analysis of the relevant exon/intron boundaries. S1 nuclease protection experiments revealed that both variant forms of the IVS3 were equally expressed in newborn and fetal rat heart, whereas only a single isoform predominated in adult rat heart. The results demonstrate the existence of an important developmentally regulated switch mediated by alternatively spliced exons in cardiac tissue at a time when major changes in excitation occur.

published proceedings

  • Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

author list (cited authors)

  • Diebold, R. J., Koch, W. J., Ellinor, P. T., Wang, J. J., Muthuchamy, M., Wieczorek, D. F., & Schwartz, A.

citation count

  • 92

complete list of authors

  • Diebold, RJ||Koch, WJ||Ellinor, PT||Wang, JJ||Muthuchamy, M||Wieczorek, DF||Schwartz, A

publication date

  • February 1992