Pre-mRNA splicing modulates post-harvest deterioration of cassava storage root

With a storage root rich in carbohydrates, casava is a major food crop in many tropical and subtropical regions; in addition to providing human food, the root also serves as the raw material of biopolymers and cosmetic products (Howeler et al., 2013; Li et al., 2017).However, during harvesting, the root is inevitably damaged.The wounding triggers an oxidative burst and reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, which leads to deterioration of the root (Zainuddin et al., 2018).Such postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD) limits the consumption of cassava.Understanding the PPD mechanism will help develop strategies to increase the shelf life of cassava storage root after harvesting.In this issue of Plant Physiology, Gu et al. identified genes that change expression in cassava storage root after harvesting (Gu et al., 2024).Interestingly, a portion of the differentially expressed genes also exhibited differential alternative splicing.The alternatively-spliced genes include those encoding serine/arginine rich (SR) proteins, which are RNA splicing regulators.SR proteins have conserved RNA-binding domains and have been shown to be involved in the assembly of spliceosome complex.The alternative splicing of SR protein pre-mRNAs results in proteins with different isoforms, which have diverse functions in the alternative splicing of other transcripts (Reddy and Shad Ali, 2011).Thus, these results hint at the possible role of SR protein-mediated alternative splicing in regulating postharvest physiological deterioration.Because ROS accumulation is closely related to PPD (Wahengbam et al., 2023), the authors tested the splicing patterns of ROS scavenging related genes during PPD (Gu et al., 2024).Specifically, they looked at candidate genes including MeGPX4, MeGST18, and MeGSH2, which encode glutathione peroxidase, glutathione transferase, and glutathione synthetase respectively.Expression analyses revealed that these genes are alternatively spliced after harvesting.These results hinted at the regulation of PPD through modulating ROS