Light Regulates Plant Alternative Splicing through the Control of Transcriptional Elongation

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

MOLECULAR CELL

CELL PRESS

Lugar: United States; Año: 2019

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.