Arabidopsis thaliana Transcriptome or Gene expression

Alternative splicing is prevalent in plants, but little is known about its regulation in the context of developmental and signaling pathways. In a genetic screen, we identified a new factor, AtRTF2, that influences pre-mRNA splicing and is essential for embryonic development in Arabidopsis thaliana. A genome-wide analysis using RNA-seq indicated that 12% of total introns are retained to a significant degree in atrtf2 mutants. Based on yeast two-hybrid and affinity purification-mass spec analysis, we suggest that AtRTF2 may act in ubiquitin-based regulation of pre-mRNA splicing and membrane signaling to the spliceosome.