Light Regulates Plant Alternative Splicing through the Control of Transcriptional Elongation

GRZEGORZ BRZYZEK; CRAIG SIMPSON; EZEQUIEL PETRILLO; MA. GUILLERMINA KUBACZKA; MICHAL KRZYSZTON; SZYMON SWIEZEWSKI; MICAELA A. GODOY HERZ; LUCAS SERVI; JOHN W.S. BROWN; ALBERTO R. KORNBLIHTT

MOLECULAR CELL

CELL PRESS

Lugar: United States; Año: 2019 vol. 73 p. 1066 - 1074

1097-2765

Light makes carbon fixation possible, allowing plantand animal life on Earth. We have previously shownthat light regulates alternative splicing in plants.Light initiates a chloroplast retrograde signalingthat regulates nuclear alternative splicing of a subsetof Arabidopsis thaliana transcripts. Here, we showthat light promotes RNA polymerase II (Pol II) elongationin the affected genes, whereas in darkness,elongation is lower. These changes in transcriptionare consistent with elongation causing the observedchanges in alternative splicing, as revealed bydifferent drug treatments and genetic evidence. Thelight control of splicing and elongation is abolishedin an Arabidopsis mutant defective in the transcriptionfactor IIS (TFIIS). We report that the chloroplastcontrol of nuclear alternative splicing in plantsresponds to the kinetic coupling mechanism foundin mammalian cells, providing unique evidencethat coupling is important for a whole organism torespond to environmental cues.