The Exon Junction Complex Core Represses Cancer-Specific Mature mRNA Re-splicing: A Potential Key Role in Terminating Splicing.

Using TSG101 pre-mRNA, we previously discovered cancer-specific re-splicing of mature mRNA that generates aberrant transcripts/proteins. The fact that mRNA is aberrantly re-spliced in various cancer cells implies there must be an important mechanism to prevent deleterious re-splicing on the spliced mRNA in normal cells. We thus postulated that mRNA re-splicing is controlled by specific repressors, and we searched for repressor candidates by siRNA-based screening for mRNA re-splicing activity.

Interleukin-27 induces the endothelial differentiation in Sca-1+ cardiac resident stem cells.

Cytokines play important roles in cardiac repair and regeneration. Recently, we demonstrated that interleukin (IL)-6 family cytokines induce the endothelial differentiation of Sca-1+ cardiac resident stem cells through STAT3/Pim-1 signaling pathway. In contrast, the biological functions of IL-12 family cytokines in heart remain to be elucidated, though they show structural homology with IL-6.