New insights into microbial manipulation of the plant spliceosome

Alternative splicing (AS) has emerged as a regulatory layer in plant adaptation to the environment. In particular, biotic stresses trigger a drastic remodeling of the plant AS landscape, with minimal overlap with changes at the gene expression level, suggesting an additional, albeit poorly understood, mechanism of regulation. Recent studies have revealed that effectors from unrelated pathogens target core spliceosome components as well as accessory splicing factors. While this targeting is begin