PMCID
PMC13001507

Exercise modulation of the alternative splicing landscape in human tissues.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The diverse health benefits of exercise are associated with multi-organ molecular responses. Alternative RNA splicing (AS) is an important determinant of transcriptome and proteome diversity. We profiled the temporal effects of acute endurance and resistance exercise on the AS landscape of human skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, and blood, and studied regulatory mechanisms through integrated multi-omic analyses. We identified 5102 distinct differential AS (DAS) events, with the majority modifying protein-coding sequence (89%) and being independent of altered RNA expression (67%). Endurance and resistance exercise induced differing patterns of AS alterations with divergent temporal trajectories. We inferred the DAS-associated RNA-binding and DNA-binding proteins. In skeletal muscle, where DAS events were the most abundant, DAS genes were enriched for muscle structure- and RNA splicing-related processes, and splicing machinery components were regulated at the protein phosphorylation, RNA, and AS levels. These findings implicate AS regulation as a major mediator of the responses to exercise.

Year of Publication
2026
Journal
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
Date Published
03/2026
ISSN
2692-8205
DOI
10.64898/2026.03.03.704460
PubMed ID
41867854
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