Alternative Splicing in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Alternative splicing of pre-mRNA is an essential event that leads to protein diversity and regulation of the cellular processes in mammals. With the advent of the next generation sequencing technologies, the role of alternative splicing is gaining a momentum. Regulation of alternative splicing is a complex process involving the core spliceosome machinery and multiple regulatory factors that enable the tightly controlled splicing of introns/exons. Any aberrant alteration in this process can result in diseases such as cancer. Indeed, accumulating evidence suggests that alternative splicing plays an important role in all hallmarks of cancer including proliferative signaling, resisting cell death, inducing angiogenesis, and activating invasion and metastasis. These changes may occur due to mutations or altered expression levels of key regulatory genes of spliceosome machinery or splicing factors. In this review, we summarize recent findings that have implicated the critical role of alternative splicing in breast cancer and discuss current understandings and its potential utility in breast cancer.