The Evolutionary Landscape of Alternative Splicing in Vertebrate Species

Nuno L. Barbosa‐Morais(University of Lisbon), Manuel Irimia(University of Toronto), Qun Pan(University of Toronto), Hui Xiong(University of Toronto), Serge Gueroussov(University of Toronto), Leo J. Lee(University of Toronto), Valentina Slobodeniuc(University of Toronto), Claudia Kutter(University of Cambridge), Stephen Watt(University of Cambridge), Recep Çolak(University of Toronto), Tae‐Hyung Kim(University of Toronto), Christine M. Misquitta-Ali(University of Toronto), Michael D. Wilson(University of Toronto), Philip M. Kim(University of Toronto), Duncan T. Odom(University of Cambridge), Brendan J. Frey(University of Toronto), Benjamin J. Blencowe(University of Toronto)
Science
December 20, 2012
10.1126/science.1230612
Cited by 1,137

Abstract

How species with similar repertoires of protein-coding genes differ so markedly at the phenotypic level is poorly understood. By comparing organ transcriptomes from vertebrate species spanning ~350 million years of evolution, we observed significant differences in alternative splicing complexity between vertebrate lineages, with the highest complexity in primates. Within 6 million years, the splicing profiles of physiologically equivalent organs diverged such that they are more strongly related to the identity of a species than they are to organ type. Most vertebrate species-specific splicing patterns are cis-directed. However, a subset of pronounced splicing changes are predicted to remodel protein interactions involving trans-acting regulators. These events likely further contributed to the diversification of splicing and other transcriptomic changes that underlie phenotypic differences among vertebrate species.

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