Detained introns are novel, widespread class of posttranscriptionally-spliced introns

Removal of introns by pre-mRNA splicing is a critical and in some cases rate-limiting step in mammalian gene expression. Deep sequencing of mouse embryonic stem cell RNA revealed many specific internal introns that are significantly more abundant than the other introns within poly(A) selected transcripts; we classify these as “detained” introns (DIs). We identified thousands of DIs flanking both constitutive and alternatively spliced exons in human and mouse cell lines. Drug inhibition of Clk SR-protein kinase activity triggered rapid splicing changes in a specific set of DIs, about half of which showed increased splicing and half increased intron detention, altering the transcript pool of over 300 genes. These data suggest a widespread mechanism by which a nuclear detained pool of mostly processed pre-mRNAs can be rapidly mobilized in response to stress or homeostatic autoregulation.