Acute effects of light on alternative splicing in light-grown plants. Arabidopsis thaliana

We report the results of a genome-wide analysis of AS in Arabidopsis thaliana plants exposed to a 2h light pulse given in the middle of the night, a treatment that simulates the effects of early dawn or late dusk signals. This light affects the plant transcriptome at multiple regulatory layers, and that light regulation of mRNA levels of splicing regulatory factors is likely to mediate light effects on AS contributing to adjust plant physiological processes to the prevailing light environment. Overall design: Arabidopsis seedlings of the Columbia ecotype were grown under 12 hr light/12 hr dark cycles for 9 days. On the 10th day, half of the plants were exposed to a two-hour pulse of white light given in the middle of the night (ZT18), while the other half were kept in darkness as controls. Both groups of plants were harvested at ZT 20 and light effects on mRNA levels and AS were analyzed through RNA-seq.