The broad objective of this project is to elucidate key mechanistic and regulatory features of human pre-mRNA splicing, and its functional links to nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. Some of these mechanistic insights will be leveraged to develop targeted antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics, which can be used in the long term for clinical applications in precision medicine. The proposed experiments involve a broad range of experimental and computational approaches, including cell-free and cell-based assays, high-throughput RNA-sequencing and quantitative proteomics, bioinformatics, transgenic mouse models, and antisense pharmacology. The anticipated findings will facilitate therapeutic antisense oligonucleotide design for various diseases, besides expanding our fundamental knowledge of basic post-transcriptional mechanisms and regulation.
These studies will substantially advance our current understanding of fundamental steps in the post-transcriptional control of gene expression, as well as influence the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of various genetic diseases associated with defective splicing or nonsense mutations.
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