Análise do processamento de mRNA em Trichoderma spp. em resposta à alterações ambientais

Abstract

Trichoderma is a genus of filamentous fungi with diverse biotechnological applications, and the regulatory mechanisms of alternative splicing remain unexplored under stress conditions in these species. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the spliceosomal intron sequences of these organisms and to identify alternative splicing events during metal-induced stress and interactions with other organisms. To this end, intron sequences within coding regions of 82 Trichoderma species and 23 reference species were identified using their reference genomes. These elements were then quantified and characterized, and functional annotation of genes with and without introns was performed. RNA-Seq data from four Trichoderma species under metal-induced stress and interaction with other microorganisms were used to identify alternative splicing events with the rMATs-turbo tool. The results show that Trichoderma have lower intron density than other eukaryotes, and their reference genomes are largely composed of genes with intronic sequences, ranging from 71.78% to 88.01% of the genome, with an average of approximately two introns per gene. Intronless genes in Trichoderma appear to be more related to basal cellular functions, whereas intron-containing genes seem to have more diversified roles. Moreover, putative genes undergoing alternative splicing were identified under the analyzed conditions, highlighting an important regulatory role in the response to environmental changes. Overall, these results contribute to the understanding of the genomic composition of Trichoderma and underline the regulatory role of alternative splicing in fungal adaptation to extracellular changes.