Alternative splicing of pre-mRNA is a prominent mechanism to generate protein 
diversity, yet its regulation is poorly understood. We demonstrated a direct 
role for histone modifications in alternative splicing. We found distinctive 
histone modification signatures that correlate with the splicing outcome in a 
set of human genes, and modulation of histone modifications causes splice site 
switching. Histone marks affect splicing outcome by influencing the recruitment 
of splicing regulators via a chromatin-binding protein. These results outline an 
adaptor system for the reading of histone marks by the pre-mRNA splicing 
machinery.