Heat stress tolerance in Arabidopsis: splicing to survive

DE LEONE, MARÍA JOSÉ; HERNANDO, C. ESTEBAN; ASTIGUETA, FRANCISCO; MORA-GARCÍA, SANTIAGO; YANOVSKY, MARCELO J.

Rosario, Santa Fe

Simposio; Simposio de Genómica Funcional de Plantas 2017; 2017

Current projections regarding global warning forecast a 0.8-4.8°C increase in terrestrial surface temperature all along the current century. Since temperature is a critical environmental factor affecting life on Earth and high temperature is considered one of the most deleterious stresses for plants, crop improvement orientated to high temperatures tolerance presents as an essential alternative in order to mitigate the negativity of current projections regarding agricultural activity. It is well known that plants have developed resourceful strategies to grow under rapidly changing environments which, ranging from transcription to mRNA processing, translation and protein turnover, involve deep molecular changes covering every step of gene expression. Nevertheless, little is known about how post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms contribute to stress tolerance. Consequently, in order to identify components of the splicing machinery involved in temperature related stress responses, we performed an in silico screening through public data bases in which we were able to identify an Arabidopsis thaliana splicing factor whose expression is altered at high and low temperatures. In the current job, the increased expression of this splicing factor in response to heat stress was further confirmed. Also, through a more comprehensive stress physiology analysis, it was revealed that mutants lacking this splicing factor were more susceptible to heat and saline stress, while exhibiting normal responses to osmotic and high irradiance stress treatments. Finally, by performing a RNA-Seq analysis, the impact of this splicing factor over the Arabidopsis transcriptome was assessed, demonstrating the relevance of alternative splicing and its regulation in establishing high temperature tolerance.