Gene expression is an intricately regulated process that is at the basis of cell differentiation, the maintenance of cell identity and the cellular responses to environmental changes. Alternative splicing, the process by which multiple functionally distinct transcripts are generated from a single gene, is one of the main mechanisms that contribute to expand the coding capacity of genomes and help explain the level of complexity achieved by higher organisms. Eukaryotic transcription is subject to multiple layers of regulation both intrinsic — such as promoter structure — and dynamic, allowing the cell to respond to internal and external signals. Similarly, alternative splicing choices are affected by all of these aspects, mainly through the regulation of transcription elongation, making it a regulatory knob on a par with the regulation of gene expression levels. This review aims to recapitulate some of the history and stepping-stones that led to the paradigms held today about transcription and splicing regulation, with major focus on transcription elongation and its effect on alternative splicing.

中文翻译：

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连接转录，RNA聚合酶II延伸和选择性剪接。

基因表达是一个复杂的调控过程，是细胞分化，维持细胞身份和细胞对环境变化的反应的基础。选择性剪接是从单个基因生成多个功能不同的转录本的过程，是有助于扩大基因组编码能力并有助于解释高级生物实现复杂性水平的主要机制之一。真核转录受内在的（例如启动子结构）和动态的多层调节，从而使细胞能够响应内部和外部信号。同样，其他所有方面都会影响替代的剪接选择，主要是通过调控转录延伸，使其成为与基因表达水平调控相当的调控旋钮。这篇综述旨在概述导致今天在转录和剪接调控上应用的范例的一些历史和垫脚石，主要侧重于转录延伸及其对替代剪接的影响。