hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Plants have evolved numerous molecular strategies to cope with perturbations in environmental temperature, and to adjust growth and physiology to limit the negative effects of extreme temperature. One of the strategies involves alternative splicing (AS) of primary transcripts to encode alternative protein products or transcript variants destined for degradation by non-sense mediated decay (NMD). Here, we review how changes in environmental temperature - cold, heat, and moderate alterations in temperature – affect AS in plants, including crops. We present examples of the mode of action of various temperature-induced splice variants and discuss how those AS events enable favourable plant responses to altered temperatures. Lastly, we point out currently unsolved questions that should be addressed to fully utilize the endogenously present mechanisms in plants to adjust their growth to environmental temperature and use the knowledge to enhance crop productivity in the future.
