EXPRESSION OF ARAB1DOPSIS SR PROTEIN IN RESPONSE TO VARIOUS TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSES

摘要

Alternative splicing is one of the most important sources of functional diversity of proteins in eukaryotes (Valenzuela et al 2004). Numerous pre-mRNAs are alternatively spliced to generate multiple transcripts from a single gene that in turn produceeither nonfunctional truncated proteins or proteins with altered activities, localization, and functions. The regulation of mature functional mRNA in eukaryotes is a highly regulated process that involves RNA-RNA, RNA-protein, and protein-protein interactions mediated by a multitude of RNA cis-acting elements and many trans-acling protein factors. Among splicing factors, the serine/arginine-rich (SR) protein family has been shown to play important roles in both the constitutive splicing and the selection of alternative splice sites (Manley & Tacke 1996, Valcarcel & Green 1996). In higher plants, there are a large number of genes encoding SR protein homologues, some of which are clear orthologs of the metazoan SR protein family, whereas others are unique to plants.