PUBLICATION
Patterns of alternative splicing in response to cold acclimation in fish
- Authors
- Healy, T.M., Schulte, P.M.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-190130-3
- Date
- 2019
- Source
- The Journal of experimental biology 222(Pt 5): (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Keywords
- Differential exon usage, Killifish, Phenotypic plasticity, Stickleback, Temperature, Zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Acclimatization*
- Alternative Splicing*
- Animals
- Cold Temperature*
- Fundulidae/genetics
- Fundulidae/physiology*
- Smegmamorpha/genetics
- Smegmamorpha/physiology*
- Zebrafish/genetics
- Zebrafish/physiology*
- PubMed
- 30692167 Full text @ J. Exp. Biol.
Citation
Healy, T.M., Schulte, P.M. (2019) Patterns of alternative splicing in response to cold acclimation in fish. The Journal of experimental biology. 222(Pt 5):.
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity is an important aspect of an organism's response to environmental change that often requires the modulation of gene expression. These changes in gene expression can be quantitative as a result of increases or decreases in the amounts of specific transcripts, or qualitative as a result of the expression of alternative transcripts from the same gene (e.g., via alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs). Although the role of quantitative changes in gene expression in phenotypic plasticity is well known, relatively few studies have examined the role of qualitative changes. Here, we use skeletal muscle RNA-seq data from Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus), threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and zebrafish (Danio rerio) to investigate the extent of qualitative changes in gene expression in response to cold. Fewer genes demonstrated alternative splicing than differential expression as a result of cold acclimation; however, differences in splicing were detected for between 426 and 866 genes depending on species, indicating that large numbers of qualitative changes in gene expression are associated with cold acclimation. Many of these alternatively spliced genes were also differentially expressed, and there was functional enrichment for involvement in muscle contraction among the genes demonstrating qualitative changes in response to cold acclimation. Additionally, there was a common group of 29 genes with cold-acclimation-mediated changes in splicing in all three species, suggesting that there may be a set of genes with expression patterns that respond qualitatively to prolonged cold temperatures across fishes.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping