The emerging role of splicing factors in cancer

Recent progress in global sequence and microarray data analy sis has revealed the increasing complexity of the human trans criptome. Alternative splicing generates a huge diversity of transcript variants and disruption of splicing regulatory networks is emerging as an important contributor to various diseases, including cancer. Current efforts to establish the dynamic reper toire of transcripts that are generated in health and disease are showing that many cancerassociated alternativesplicing events occur in the absence of mutations in the affected genes. A grow ing body of evidence reveals changes in splicingfactor expres sion that correlate with cancer development, progression and response to therapy. Here, we discuss how recent links between cancer and altered expression of proteins implicated in splicing regulation are bringing the splicing machinery to the fore as a potential target for anticancer treatment