Nuclear Speckles
- 1Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, One Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724
- 2Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, MSI/WTB/JBC Complex Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom
- Correspondence: spector{at}cshl.edu, angus{at}lifesci.dundee.ac.uk
Abstract
Nuclear speckles, also known as interchromatin granule clusters, are nuclear domains enriched in pre-mRNA splicing factors, located in the interchromatin regions of the nucleoplasm of mammalian cells. When observed by immunofluorescence microscopy, they usually appear as 20–50 irregularly shaped structures that vary in size. Speckles are dynamic structures, and their constituents can exchange continuously with the nucleoplasm and other nuclear locations, including active transcription sites. Studies on the composition, structure, and dynamics of speckles have provided an important paradigm for understanding the functional organization of the nucleus and the dynamics of the gene expression machinery.
Footnotes
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Editors: Tom Misteli and David L. Spector
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Additional Perspectives on The Nucleus available at www.cshperspectives.org
- Copyright © 2011 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved
