International Journal of Molecular Sciences Review The Alter Retina: Alternative Splicing of Retinal Genes in Health and Disease Izarbe Aísa-Marín 1,2 , Rocío García-Arroyo 1,3 , Serena Mirra 1,2 and Gemma Marfany 1,2,3,* 1 Departament of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics, Avda. Diagonal 643, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain;
[email protected] (I.A.-M.);
[email protected] (R.G.-A.);
[email protected] (S.M.) 2 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain 3 Institute of Biomedicine (IBUB, IBUB-IRSJD), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Alternative splicing of mRNA is an essential mechanism to regulate and increase the diversity of the transcriptome and proteome. Alternative splicing frequently occurs in a tissue- or time-specific manner, contributing to differential gene expression between cell types during development. Neural tissues present extremely complex splicing programs and display the highest number of alternative splicing events. As an extension of the central nervous system, the retina constitutes an excellent system to illustrate the high diversity of neural transcripts. The retina expresses retinal specific splicing factors and produces a large number of alternative transcripts, including exclusive tissue-specific exons, which require an exquisite regulation. In fact, a current challenge in the genetic diagnosis of inherited retinal diseases stems from the lack of information regarding alternative splicing of retinal genes, as a considerable percentage of mutations alter splicing Citation: Aísa-Marín, I.; or the relative production of alternative transcripts. Modulation of alternative splicing in the retina García-Arroyo, R.; Mirra, S.; Marfany, is also instrumental in the design of novel therapeutic approaches for retinal dystrophies, since it G.