CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Because of their sessile nature, plants have developed versatile strategies to grow under rapidly changing environments. These strategies involve deep molecular changes covering every step of gene expression: from transcription to mRNA processing, translation and protein turnover. Although the importance of these processes in stress responses has been widely accepted, little is known about how post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms contribute to stress tolerance; in particular, specific global studies are lacking. Temperature is critical environmental factor affecting life on Earth and high temperature is considered one of the most deleterious stresses for plants. Here we present a genome-wide RNA-seq analysis of the effects of temperature on the Arabidopsis thaliana transcriptome; particularly focusing on the impact of high temperature stress on both gene expression and splicing. Furthermore, by performing a detailed physiological and molecular characterization of an Arabidopsis plant bearing a mutation in a specific splicing factor, we uncovered the importance of alternative splicing in stress tolerance. Our results highlight the role of both alternative splicing and its regulation in establishing high temperature tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana.