The occurrence and function of alternative splicing in fungi

Abstract

Alternative splicing is a common but complex posttranscriptional regulatory process in eukaryotes, through which multiple different transcripts are produced from a single pre-mRNA. An increasing number of studies have revealed that alternative splicing is widespread in fungi. Intron retention (IR) is considered the most prevalent splicing type due to the relatively short introns and long exons involved in this process. Alternative splicing is coordinated by a variety of factors, including genomic structure characteristics, TPP riboswitches, splicing factors and DNA methylation, and is involved in the regulation of growth and development, and the improvement of survivability and pathogenicity. Taken together, the results show that alternative splicing events are fungal evolutionary adaptations to changing external conditions.