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Alternative splicing in ascomycetes

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Abstract

Alternative splicing is a complex and regulated process, which results in mRNA with different coding capacities from a single gene. Extend and types of alternative splicing vary greatly among eukaryotes. In this review, I focus on alternative splicing in ascomycetes, which in general have significant lower extend of alternative splicing than mammals. Yeast-like species have low numbers of introns and consequently alternative splicing is lower compared to filamentous fungi. Several examples from single studies as well as from genomic scale analysis are presented, including a survey of alternative splicing in Neurospora crassa. Another focus is regulation by riboswitch RNA and alternative splicing in a heterologous system, along with putative protein factors involved in regulation.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Katharina Knittler (Kiel) for helping with identifying relevant literature, Stefanie Pöggeler (Göttingen) for critical discussion, and Sharvari Gujja (Broad) for providing a list of alternative spliced N. crassa transcripts.

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  1. Abteilung für Botanische Genetik und Molekularbiologie, Botanisches Institut und Botanischer Garten, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, 24098, Kiel, Germany

    Frank Kempken

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Correspondence to Frank Kempken.

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Kempken, F. Alternative splicing in ascomycetes. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 97, 4235–4241 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-013-4841-x

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