Just read a paper from Lei Li's lab at the University of Virgina which provides an analysis of the impact of alternative splicing on miRNA target sites in Arabidopsis. Very interesting data. Their analysis suggests that a little more than one in ten miRNA target sites in Arabidopsis are differentially present/absent in alternative splice forms. Even more curious, their analysis indicates that miRNA target sites are 'hotspots' for alternative splicing. There is a nice discussion of how this could be a useful mechanism to preserve a target site evolutionarily, but to eliminate miRNA regulation by alt. splicing in tissue or condition-specific situations. Of course, the caveat for most of these is that the alt. splicing is also affecting protein sequence, since most of these sites are in the ORFs .. so disentangling the significance of the alt. splicing events (to change protein function or miRNA regulation?) is a challenge.
Yang et al., 2012. The Plant Journal. Pubmed: 22247970 doi:10.1111/j.1365-313X.2011.04882.x
Yang et al., 2012. The Plant Journal. Pubmed: 22247970 doi:10.1111/j.1365-313X.2011.04882.x