In eukaryotes, alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs contributes significantly to the proper expression of the genome. However, the functions of many auxiliary spliceosomal proteins are still unknown. Here, we functionally characterized plant homologues of nematode suppressors of mec-8 and unc-52 (smu). We compared transcript profiles of maize (Zea mays) smu2 endosperm with those of wild-type plants and identified pre-mRNA splicing events that depend on the maize SMU2 protein.Consistent with a conserved role of plant SMU-2 homologues, Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) smu2 mutants also show altered splicing of similar target pre-mRNAs. The Atsmu2 mutants occasionally show developmental phenotypes, including abnormal cotyledon numbers and higher seed weights. We identified AtSMU1 as one of the SMU2-interacting proteins, and Atsmu1 mutations cause similar developmental phenotypes with higher penetrance than Atsmu2. The AtSMU2 and AtSMU1 proteins are localized to the nucleus and highly prevalent in actively dividing tissues. Taken together, our data indicated that the plant SMU-1 and SMU-2 homologues appear to be involved in splicing of specific pre-mRNAs that affect multiple aspects of development.Pre-mRNA splicing is an essential process where the spliceosome removes introns from pre-mRNAs, and it can lead to more than one splice variant (SV), resulting in the production of different proteins. Alternative splicing has been found to be an important regulatory process in global gene expression, since the splicing pattern of a pre-mRNA can vary in different cell types and at different developmental stages as well as in response to environmental cues (Black, 2003). A model of combinatorial control for pre-mRNA splicing was proposed to explain the apparent complexity of splicing, as the protein complex controlling splice site selection consists of positive-and negative-acting factors (e.g. Ser/Arg-rich [SR] proteins and heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins [hnRNPs], respectively, that have synergistic and antagonistic interactions; Smith and Valcarcel, 2000;Black, 2003). The balance between splicing factors determines the pattern of pre-mRNA splicing, but tissue-specific regulators appear to be crucial for determining alternative splicing patterns between tissues.The spliceosome consists of a group of small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) and proteins that are recruited to premRNAs to remove introns (Jurica and Moore, 2003). Recent proteomic analyses of human spliceosomal complexes (Neubauer et al., 1998;Hartmuth et al., 2002;Jurica et al., 2002;Makarov et al., 2002;Rappsilber et al., 2002;Zhou et al., 2002;Bessonov et al., 2008) revealed nearly 300 putative spliceosomal proteins. Only a fraction of these proteins constitute the catalytic core components for pre-mRNA splicing, while the others are believed to be auxiliary factors. Some of these auxiliary proteins appear to be sequence-specific splicing factors (i.e. recruited to certain sets of pre-mRNAs) or their associated proteins and provide communication links between spl...