Histone modifications and their role in splicing

Abstract: Splicing is the process when introns gets removed and exons are spliced together. This is an important step to form a clean mRNA with no unnecessary sequences that could interrupt protein synthesis. There are different types of splicing and some of them need a complex called spliceosome. The spliceosome requires ATP, small nuclear RNAs and splicing factors. The spliceosome and the process splicing can be regulated by epigenetics, and one epigenetic mechanism is histone modification. There are four types of histone modifications; methylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination and acetylation. They regulate splicing to different extents by altering the chromatin structure, affect the assembly of the spliceosome and regulate the attraction of splicing factors. This review will investigate if histone modifications affect splicing and to what extent. Suggestions for further research regarding the relationship between splicing and histone modifications will also be provided. The review is based on 30 articles and two books and the search was conducted between 30th of March 2020 and 13th of April 2020. Ubiquitination and phosphorylation have a minor effect on splicing meanwhile methylation and acetylation affect splicing in great extent.