Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2020 Nov 18;15(11):e0241914. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241914. eCollection 2020.
Alternative splicing (AS) is a post-transcriptional process common in plants and essential for regulation of environmental fitness of plants. In the present study, we focus on the AS events in poplar leaves to understand their effects on plant growth and development. The hybrid poplar (P.alba×P.glandulosa cv.84K) leaves were collected for RNA extraction. The extracted RNA was sequenced using on an Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 platform. Using the Populus trichocarpa genome as the reference, a total of 3810 AS genes were identified (9225 AS events), which accounted for 13.51% of all the expressed genes. Intron retention was the most common AS event, accounting for 43.86% of all the AS events, followed by alternative 3' splice sites (23.75%), alternative 5' splice sites (23.71%), and exon skipping (8.68%). Chromosomes 10 had the most condensed AS events (33.67 events/Mb) and chromosome 19 had the least (12.42 events/Mb). Association analysis showed that AS in the poplar leaves was positively correlated with intron length, exon number, exon length, and gene expression level, and was negatively correlated with GC content. AS genes in the poplar leaves were associated mainly with inositol phosphate metabolism and phosphatidylinositol signaling system pathways that would be significant on wooden plant production.
可变剪接（AS）是植物中常见的转录后过程，对植物适应环境的能力具有重要的调控作用。在本研究中，我们专注于杨树叶片中的 AS 事件，以了解它们对植物生长和发育的影响。采集杂交杨（P.alba×P.glandulosa cv.84K）叶片进行 RNA 提取。使用 Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 平台对提取的 RNA 进行测序。以杨属基因组为参考，共鉴定出 3810 个 AS 基因（9225 个 AS 事件），占所有表达基因的 13.51%。内含子保留是最常见的 AS 事件，占所有 AS 事件的 43.86%，其次是可变 3' 剪接位点（23.75%）、可变 5' 剪接位点（23.71%）和外显子跳跃（8.68%）。第 10 号染色体的 AS 事件最集中（33.67 个事件/Mb），第 19 号染色体的 AS 事件最少（12.42 个事件/Mb）。关联分析表明，杨树叶片中的 AS 与内含子长度、外显子数量、外显子长度和基因表达水平呈正相关，与 GC 含量呈负相关。杨树叶片中的 AS 基因主要与肌醇磷酸盐代谢和磷脂酰肌醇信号系统途径相关，这对木质植物的生产具有重要意义。
