Mutually opposing activity of PIN7 splicing isoforms is required for auxin‐mediated tropic responses in Arabidopsis thaliana

What is it about?

In eukaryotes, alternative splicing (AS) operates to increase transcriptome diversity. For plants, the data experimentally demonstrating the functionality of individual AS events are limited, even that of major developmental and hormonal regulators. Interestingly, AS often provides a piece of genuine information on the mechanisms underlining the activity of a given protein of interest. Our systematic effort reveals how and why two splice variants encoding the PIN7 auxin efflux carrier differ. We show that both isoforms mutually influence their stability within the plasma membrane by their close association to tune downstream developmental responses. Thus, we introduce AS as a functionally relevant process governing auxin transport and underpin that different lateral mobility of PIN proteins is required for proper auxin-mediated morphogenesis.

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