Plant AFC2 kinase desensitizes thermomorphogenesis through modulation of alternative splicing

iScience

Jingya Lin¹  Bojian Zhong¹  Junjie Shi¹  Ziqiang Zhu¹  Zhenhua Zhang¹ 

[1] College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, 210023 Nanjing, China;

关键词: Molecular biology;    Molecular mechanism of gene regulation;    Plant biology;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Summary: High ambient temperatures have adverse impacts on crop yields. Although a few plant thermosensors have been reported, these sensors directly or indirectly impact PIF4-controlled transcriptional regulation. Moreover, high temperatures also trigger a number of post-transcriptional alternative splicing events in plants and even in animals. Here, we show that LAMMER kinase AFC2 in Arabidopsis controls high-temperature-triggered alternative splicing. Plants without AFC2 exhibited distorted splicing patterns at a high ambient temperature. Further investigations revealed that high temperatures triggered alternative splicing in the majority of PIF4 target genes as a means of desensitizing PIF4 signaling. Consistently, the afc2 mutants exhibited more exaggerated high ambient temperature responses in a PIF4-dependent manner. AFC2 directly phosphorylated the serine/arginine-rich protein splicing factor RSZ21, and AFC2 kinase activity decreased with increasing temperature, indicating that the AFC2 itself may sense temperature changes. In summary, we report that alternative splicing is a safe-guard mechanism when plants encounter high temperature.

【 授权许可】

Unknown