RBM20-Mediated Pre-mRNA Splicing Has Muscle-Specificity and Differential Hormonal Responses between Muscles and in Muscle Cell Cultures.

Pre-mRNA splicing plays an important role in muscle function and diseases. The RNA binding motif 20 (RBM20) is a splicing factor that is predominantly expressed in muscle tissues and primarily regulates pre-mRNA splicing of Ttn, encoding a giant muscle protein titin that is responsible for muscle function and diseases. RBM20-mediated Ttn splicing has been mostly studied in heart muscle, but not in skeletal muscle.

Angiotensin II Influences Pre-mRNA Splicing Regulation by Enhancing Transcription Through Activation of the MAPK/ELK1 Signaling Pathway.

RNA binding motif 20 (RBM20) is a key regulator of pre-mRNA splicing of titin and other genes that are associated with cardiac diseases. Hormones, like insulin, triiodothyronine (T3), and angiotensin II (Ang II), can regulate gene-splicing through RBM20, but the detailed mechanism remains unclear. This study was aimed at investigating the signaling mechanism by which hormones regulate pre-mRNA splicing through RBM20.

Obesity is a common soil for premature cardiac aging and heart diseases - Role of autophagy.

The advance in medical technology and healthcare has dramatically improved the average human lifespan. One of the consequences for longevity is the high prevalence of aging-related chronic disorders such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and metabolic abnormalities. As the composition of aging population is raising in western countries, heart failure remains the number one cause of death with a more severe impact in the elderly.

Maternal obesity impairs fetal cardiomyocyte contractile function in sheep.

Obesity is a major public health problem worldwide. In the United States, one-third of women of reproductive age are obese. Human studies show that maternal obesity (MO) predisposes offspring to cardiovascular disease.

Z-band and M-band titin splicing and regulation by RNA binding motif 20 in striated muscles.

Titin (TTN) has multifunctional roles in sarcomere assembly, mechanosignaling transduction, and muscle stiffness. TTN splicing generates variable protein sizes with different functions. Therefore, understanding TTN splicing is important to develop a novel treatment for TTN-based diseases.

Muscle-Specific Mis-Splicing and Heart Disease Exemplified by RBM20.

Alternative splicing is an essential post-transcriptional process to generate multiple functional RNAs or proteins from a single transcript. Progress in RNA biology has led to a better understanding of muscle-specific RNA splicing in heart disease. The recent discovery of the muscle-specific splicing factor RNA-binding motif 20 (RBM20) not only provided great insights into the general alternative splicing mechanism but also demonstrated molecular mechanism of how this splicing factor is associated with dilated cardiomyopathy.