Austin Herbert

The paper investigates how RNA sequence and structure influence splicing of the MAP3K7 intron, showing that branchpoint mutations strongly affect cryptic splice-site usage and that structural changes in RNA binding protein hotspots correlate with splicing outcomes.

The paper identifies sequence and structural differences between SF3B1-sensitive and resistant cryptic 3' splice sites, showing SF3B1-sensitive sites are weaker and less structurally distinct.

The paper shows that IL-6 induces altered polyadenylation in SERPINA1, increasing long 3UTR isoforms that repress A1AT protein expression during inflammation.