Alternative splicing in seasonal plasticity and the potential for adaptation to environmental change.

ABSTRACT: Seasonal plasticity is accomplished via tightly regulated developmental cascades that translate environmental cues into trait changes. Little is known about how alternative splicing and other posttranscriptional molecular mechanisms contribute to plasticity or how these mechanisms impact how plasticity evolves. Here, we use transcriptomic and genomic data from the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, a model system for seasonal plasticity, to compare the extent of differential expression and splicing and test how these axes of transcriptional plasticity differ in their potential for evolutionary change. Between seasonal morphs, we find that differential splicing affects a smaller but functionally unique set of genes compared to differential expression. Further, we find strong support for the novel

SUBMITTER: Steward RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8825856 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature