Fig. 1

Alternative splicing and the effect of aberrant alternative splicing on cancer progression. The spliceosome, consists of five small nuclear ribonucleoproteins particles (U1, U2, U4, U5 and U6) and hundreds of additional proteins, recognizes the consensus sequence of each intron and assembles reversibly on splice sites to catalytic pre-mRNA splicing. SR  proteins  and hnRNPs bound to exonic or intronic regulatory elements to promote or prevent the use of splice sites thus affecting alternative splicing decisions. The figure displays some examples of cancer-specific splicing events that contribute to distinct hallmarks of cancer. Arrows up and down indicate the corresponding isoforms contributing or suppressing the hallmark respectively