Splicing and alternative splicing in rice and humans.
Rice is a monocot gramineous crop, and one of the most important staple foods. Rice is considered a model species for most gramineous crops. Extensive research on rice has provided critical guidance for other crops, such as maize and wheat. In recent years, climate change and exacerbated soil degradation have resulted in a variety of abiotic stresses, such as greenhouse effects, lower temperatures, drought, floods, soil salinization and heavy metal pollution. As such, there is an extremely high demand for additional research, in order to address these negative factors. Studies have shown that the alternative splicing of many genes in rice is affected by stress conditions, suggesting that manipulation of the alternative splicing of specific genes may be an effective approach for rice to adapt to abiotic stress. With the advancement of microarrays, and more recently, next generation sequencing technology, several studies have shown that more than half of the genes in the rice genome undergo alternative splicing. This mini-review summarizes the latest progress in the research of splicing and alternative splicing in rice, compared to splicing in humans. Furthermore, we discuss how additional studies may change the landscape of investigation of rice functional genomics and genetically improved rice.
Nantong University, Nantong 226001, P.R. China jianhua@ntu.edu.cn; jianhua55@msn.com.
Zhiguo
Z
E
Lei
L
Wang
Jianhua
J
Zhou
D017398:Alternative Splicing; D005091:Exons; D015894:Genome, Human; D018745:Genome, Plant; D034441:Heterogeneous-Nuclear Ribonucleoproteins / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns; D012275:Oryza / Q000235:genetics*; D012322:RNA Precursors / Q000378:metabolism; D050436:Regulatory Elements, Transcriptional / Q000235:genetics
D034441:Heterogeneous-Nuclear Ribonucleoproteins; D012322:RNA Precursors