TY - JOUR T1 - Srrm234, but not canonical SR and hnRNP proteins drive inclusion of <em>Dscam</em> exon 9 variable exons JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/584003 SP - 584003 AU - Pinar Ustaoglu AU - Irmgard U. Haussmann AU - Hongzhi Liao AU - Antonio Torres-Mendez AU - Roland Arnold AU - Manuel Irimia AU - Matthias Soller Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/21/584003.abstract N2 - Alternative splicing of pre-mRNA is a major mechanism to diversify protein functionality in metazoans from a limited number of genes. In the Drosophila Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule (Dscam) important for neuronal wiring up to 38,016 isoforms can be generated by mutually exclusive alternative splicing in four clusters of variable exons. However, it is not understood how a specific exon is chosen from the many variables and how variable exons are prevented from being spliced together. A main role in the regulation of Dscam alternative splicing has been attributed to RNA binding proteins, but how they impact on exon selection is not well understood. Serine-arginine-rich (SR) proteins and hnRNP proteins are the two main types of RNA binding proteins with major roles in exon definition and splice site selection. Here, we analyzed the role of SR and hnRNP proteins in Dscam exon 9 alternative splicing in mutant Drosophila embryos because of their essential function for development. Strikingly, Dscam alternative exon selection is very robust against loss or overexpression of canonical SR and hnRNP proteins even when multiple proteins are depleted together. Conversely, non-canonical SR protein Serine-arginine repetitive matrix 234 (Srrm234) is a main determinant of exon inclusion in Dscam exon 9 cluster. Since long-range base-pairings are absent in the exon 9 cluster, our data argue for a small complement of regulatory factors as main determinants of exon inclusion in the Dscam exon 9 cluster. ER -