Although we observed that alcohol, via miR-9, regulated alternatively spliced BK transcripts encoding channel isoforms exhibiting different alcohol responsiveness it was still unclear how these changes contribute to tolerance. The most abundant isoform (INSERTLESS) had only a mild response to alcohol, and its relative amount changed the least. In contrast, the relative amounts of isoforms with the least (STREX) and the greatest (ALCOREX) alcohol responses changed the most (Figure 2D), but their relative contribution to overall BK channel amount was rather small.
