Genome wide analysis of alternative splicing under low nitrogen in maize ears

Alternative splicing (AS) is one common and important mechanism to regulate biological functions in plants including abiotic stress like low nitrogen stress. To investigate the wide regulation of alternative splicing in nitrogen responses during maize reproductive development, we used next generation sequencing to analyze genome wide changes of AS from the ears before pollination across two typical maize inbred lines (xu178 and ye478) under low and normal nitrogen treatment as well as the ears at 10 days after pollination.