title: The evolutionary landscape of alternative splicing in vertebrate species.
abstract: How species with similar repertoires of protein-coding genes differ so markedly at the phenotypic level is poorly understood. By comparing organ transcriptomes from vertebrate species spanning ~350 million years of evolution, we observed significant differences in alternative splicing complexity between vertebrate lineages, with the highest complexity in primates. Within 6 million years, the splicing profiles of physiologically equivalent organs diverged such that they are more strongly related to the identity of a species than they are to organ type. Most vertebrate species-specific splicing patterns are cis-directed. However, a subset of pronounced splicing changes are predicted to remodel protein interactions involving trans-acting regulators. These events likely further contributed to the diversification of splicing and other transcriptomic changes that underlie phenotypic differences among vertebrate species.
authors.affiliation: Banting and Best Department of Medical Research, Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Nuno L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Barbosa-Morais
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Irimia
authors.forename: Qun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Hui Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gueroussov
authors.forename: Leo J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Slobodeniuc
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kutter
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Watt
authors.forename: Recep
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Colak
authors.forename: TaeHyung
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Christine M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Misquitta-Ali
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Philip M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Duncan T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Odom
authors.forename: Brendan J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.forename: Benjamin J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Blencowe
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005091:Exons; D007438:Introns; D008116:Lizards / Q000235:genetics; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL / Q000235:genetics; D009893:Opossums / Q000235:genetics; D010641:Phenotype; D010987:Platypus / Q000235:genetics; D011323:Primates / Q000235:genetics; D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D038621:Regulatory Sequences, Ribonucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D059467:Transcriptome; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics*; D014981:Xenopus / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D038621:Regulatory Sequences, Ribonucleic Acid