Abstract
Alternative splicing in the 3'-terminal region of chloroplast ascorbate peroxidase (chlAPX) pre-mRNA in spinach and tobacco, which produced four types of mRNAs, one form (tAPX-I) encoding thylakoid-bound APX and three forms (sAPX-I, -II, -III) encoding stromal APX, were regulated by the splicing regulatory cis-element (SRE) (Yoshimura et al., 2002 J. Biol. Chem., 277, 40623-40632). Here, we investigated the possibility that the regulation of alternative splicing by SRE is a general mechanism in higher plants. The truncated 3'-terminal regions of spinach chlAPX gene placed under the control of CaMV 35S promoter were transformed to Arabidopsis which has been found to contain two different genes for chlAPX isoenzymes. All four types of alternatively spliced mRNAs derived from the transgene were detected in the transformed Arabidopsis. The deletion of SRE sequence diminished the expression efficiency of tAPX-I mRNA. These results suggest that SRE regulates the other alternative splicing events.
