title: Evolutionary conservation and regulation of particular alternative splicing events in plant SR proteins.
abstract: Alternative splicing is an important mechanism for fine tuning of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. SR proteins govern splice site selection and spliceosome assembly. The Arabidopsis genome encodes 19 SR proteins, several of which have no orthologues in metazoan. Three of the plant specific subfamilies are characterized by the presence of a relatively long alternatively spliced intron located in their first RNA recognition motif, which potentially results in an extremely truncated protein. In atRSZ33, a member of the RS2Z subfamily, this alternative splicing event was shown to be autoregulated. Here we show that atRSp31, a member of the RS subfamily, does not autoregulate alternative splicing of its similarly positioned intron. Interestingly, this alternative splicing event is regulated by atRSZ33. We demonstrate that the positions of these long introns and their capability for alternative splicing are conserved from green algae to flowering plants. Moreover, in particular alternative splicing events the splicing signals are embedded into highly conserved sequences. In different taxa, these conserved sequences occur in at least one gene within a subfamily. The evolutionary preservation of alternative splice forms together with highly conserved intron features argues for additional functions hidden in the genes of these plant-specific SR proteins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Medical University of Vienna, Dr Bohr-Gasse 9/3, A-1030 Vienna, Austria. andrea.barta@meduniwien.ac.at
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kalyna
authors.forename: Sergiy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lopato
authors.forename: Viktor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Voronin
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barta
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D007438:Introns; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D000068103:Serine-Arginine Splicing Factors
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; C469364:At2g37340 protein, Arabidopsis; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins; C103793:RSp31 protein, Arabidopsis; D000068103:Serine-Arginine Splicing Factors