Small changes in ambient temperature affect alternative splicing in Arabidopsis thaliana

Alternative splicing (AS) gives rise to multiple mRNA isoforms from the same gene, providing possibilities to regulate gene expression beyond the level of transcription. In a recent paper in Nucleic Acids Research we used a high resolution RT-PCR based panel to study changes in AS patterns in plants with altered levels of an hnRNP-like RNA-binding protein in Arabidopsis thaliana. Furthermore, we detected significant changes in AS patterns between different Arabidopsis ecotypes. Here we investigated how small changes in ambient temperature affect AS. We found significant changes in AS for 12 of 28 investigated events (43%) upon transfer of Arabidopsis plants from 20°C to 16°C and for 6 of the 28 investigated events (21%) upon transfer from 20°C to 24°C.