Transcriptome analysis of alternative splicing in different moso bamboo tissues

Alternative splicing (AS) is a key regulatory mechanism associated with proteome and transcriptome diversity. However, the prevalence of AS in the moso bamboo genome is still unclear. Transcriptome sequencing of four different tissues indicated that 36.17% of the genes in the moso bamboo genome undergo AS. The predominant type of AS found in moso bamboo was intron retention (38.70%), followed by alternative 5′ (31.86%) and 3′ (16.68%) splice sites and exon skipping (11.46%). The number of AS events in every gene was relevant to gene characteristics and gene expression. We also observed that the alternative 5′ and 3′ splice sites were significantly enriched in the fourth nucleotide downstream or upstream of the dominant splice sites. Furthermore, the frequency of AS types as well as the quantity of AS events significantly varied among different tissues. The findings of the present study provide a comprehensive view of AS events in moso bamboo.