Ithaca College

Maki has received a two-year, $35,000 Cottrell College Science Award for her project entitled, “Regulation of gene expression by coupling pre-mRNA splicing with RNA decay”.  Ithaca College has provided over $10,000 in matching funds.

ABSTRACT:

The major goal of my research is to understand one of the most fundamental problems in molecular biology today: how do organisms regulate expression of their genetic material? Whereas mechanisms of transcriptional control have been widely studied, I am focusing on the role of pre-mRNA splicing in regulating this process. Since most eukaryotic genes are interrupted by noncoding sequences called introns, proper gene expression requires the removal of these introns in a reaction catalyzed by a large ribonucleoprotein enzyme called the spliceosome. Pre-mRNA splicing is known to play an important role in generating genomic diversity. By changing the order in which the coding regions of genes are spliced together, multiple protein isoforms can be produced from a single transcript via a process termed alternative splicing. Here I am proposing experiments to examine a different mode of alternative splicing in which certain splicing events lead not to production of different protein isoforms, but rather to mRNA decay. Because the regulation of splicing is essential for normal cellular function and its mis-regulation is often associated with disease, we expect that understanding the molecular mechanisms that control this pathway will have broad implications for the fields of chemistry, biology and human health.