Gene Regulation by Alternate Transcript Splicing -Transcriptional regulation plays an important role in controlling development in eukaryotes. The regulation of transcription process is well documented in many systems and occurs in several ways.

Regulation occurs by changing transcript stability, by differential transport to the cytoplasm and by differential translation of processed transcripts. One of the most spectacular examples of alternative modes of transcript splicing occurs in the case of the tropomyosin genes of drosophila and vertebrates.

Tropomyosins are a family of closely related proteins that mediate the interactions between actin and troponin and thus help regulate muscle contractions. Different tissues, both muscle and non-muscle, are characterized by the presence of different tropomyosin isoforms. It turns out that many of these isoforms are produced from the same gene by alternative splicing.