The cooccurrence of PolyA motifs ([A]7-11) with the PRO2+ and the INT6+ sites had attracted our attention (Figure 4—figure supplement 1). Combinatorial deletions of all six FLM PolyA motifs led to gradual decreases in FLM-ß abundance, which could be explained be altered intron 1 splicing (Figure 7). This ultimately resulted in FLM-ß levels below a lower effective threshold in the PolyA_6xΔ lines and consequently very early flowering (Figure 4—figure supplement 1). This suggested that the PolyA motifs may modulate FLM expression by altering FLM splicing. In support of this conclusion, we found that an extended PolyA motif, as it is present in the INT6+AAA variant when compared to the Col-0 reference variant INT6+AAT, correlated with strong increases in FLM-ß but not in FLM-δ abundance (Figure 4). PolyA motifs are known to prevent nucleosome binding and changes of chromatin architecture may influence splicing (Reddy et al., 2013; Suter et al., 2000; Wijnker et al., 2013). The knowledge about the underlying molecular mechanisms and the identity and specificity of the splicing regulators in plants is still very limited. We noted with interest, however, that several hnRNPs have a reported role in flowering time regulation in Arabidopsis and wheat (Kippes et al., 2015; Fusaro et al., 2007; Streitner et al., 2012; Xiao et al., 2015).