Heat-evolved strains of the coral symbiont Cladocopium proliferum have diverged in exon usage

Heat-evolved Cladocopium proliferum strains show strong divergence in exon usage from WT10, with SS3 reaching 10,464 genes with differential exon usage.

• Why it matters: Gene-level expression can miss fine-scale regulatory changes that may underlie thermal adaptation and, for some strains, coral bleaching tolerance.
• What they did: Reanalyzing published transcriptomes of SS3, SS5, and SS8 in symbiosis with Acropora kenti larvae at 27°C, the authors used limma, DEXSeq, and rMATS to quantify exon usage and junction-level splicing.
• The result: Exon usage separated heat-evolved strains from WT10 (1,308 genes for SS8; 4,931 for SS5; 59%–72% without differential expression), while SS8’s exon/splicing profile differed from non-protective strains and included glutathione-related candidates.

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