TEMPERATURE STRESS TOLERANCE INARABIDOPSIS THALIANA: A ROLE FORALTERNATIVE SPLICING

CARLOS ESTEBAN HERNANDO; MARIA JOSE DE LEONE; SANTIAGO MORA GARCIA; MARCELO YANOVSKY; FRANCISCO ASTIGUETA

Cordoba

Congreso; LII Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2016

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

In the last year earth global temperature has reached an historical record, exceeding in 1°C the value estimated for the19th century. As a consequence, a profound effect on plants distribution and survival is expected, so crop improvement orientated to high temperature tolerance seems an interesting alternative in order to mitigate the deleterious effects of heat stress in plants. It is well known that plant´s physiological and metabolic plasticity is given by deep molecular changes in gene expression. Although the importance of these processes instress responses is widely accepted, little is known about how post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms contribute to stress tolerance. With the aim of identifying components of the pre-mRNA processing machinery involved in the establishment ofhigh temperature tolerance, we performed an in-silico screeningin public data bases. As a result of this approach, we were able to find an Arabidopsis thaliana splicing factor whose expressionis altered under both high and low temperatures. By performing a physiological and molecular characterization of Arabidopsis plants bearing a mutation in this 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.