This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental material
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Holec, S.
Right arrow Articles by Gagliardi, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Holec, S.
Right arrow Articles by Gagliardi, D.

 Previous Article

Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 2006, p. 2869-2876, Vol. 26, No. 7
0270-7306/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.26.7.2869-2876.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Relaxed Transcription in Arabidopsis Mitochondria Is Counterbalanced by RNA Stability Control Mediated by Polyadenylation and Polynucleotide Phosphorylase{dagger}

Sarah Holec,1,{ddagger} Heike Lange,1,{ddagger} Kristina Kühn,2 Malek Alioua,1 Thomas Börner,2 and Dominique Gagliardi1*

Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes, CNRS UPR2357, 12 Rue du Général Zimmer, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France,1 Institut für Biologie/Genetik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Chausseestr. 117, D-10115 Berlin, Germany2

Received 26 September 2005/ Returned for modification 30 November 2005/ Accepted 9 January 2006

Plant mitochondrial genomes are extraordinarily large and complex compared to their animal counterparts, due to the presence of large noncoding regions. Multiple promoters are common for plant mitochondrial genes, and transcription exhibits little or no modulation. Mature functional RNAs are produced through various posttranscriptional processes, and control of RNA stability has a major impact on RNA abundance. This control involves polyadenylation which targets RNA for degradation by polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase). Here, we have analyzed polyadenylated RNA fragments from Arabidopsis plants down-regulated for PNPase (PNP– plants). Because of their polyadenylated status and the accumulation of the corresponding RNA in PNP– versus wild-type plants, these sequences represent mitochondrial RNA degradation tags. Analysis of these tags revealed that PNPase is involved in degrading rRNA and tRNA maturation by-products but also RNA transcribed from regions that are in some cases highly expressed although lacking known functional genes. Some of these transcripts, such as RNA containing chimeric open reading frames created by recombination or antisense RNA transcribed on the opposite strand of a known gene, may present potential detrimental effects to mitochondrial function. Taken together, our data show that the relaxed transcription in Arabidopsis mitochondria is counterbalanced by RNA stability control mediated by polyadenylation and PNPase.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes, CNRS UPR2357, 12 Rue du Général Zimmer, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Phone: 33 3 88 41 71 62. Fax: 33 3 88 61 44 42. E-mail: dominique.gagliardi{at}ibmp-ulp.u-strasbg.fr.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.

{ddagger} These authors contributed equally to this work.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, April 2006, p. 2869-2876, Vol. 26, No. 7
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.26.7.2869-2876.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Rayapuram, N., Hagenmuller, J., Grienenberger, J. M., Bonnard, G., Giege, P. (2008). The Three Mitochondrial Encoded CcmF Proteins Form a Complex That Interacts with CCMH and c-Type Apocytochromes in Arabidopsis. J. Biol. Chem. 283: 25200-25208 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Lange, H., Holec, S., Cognat, V., Pieuchot, L., Le Ret, M., Canaday, J., Gagliardi, D. (2008). Degradation of a Polyadenylated rRNA Maturation By-Product Involves One of the Three RRP6-Like Proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana. Mol. Cell. Biol. 28: 3038-3044 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Zimmer, S. L., Fei, Z., Stern, D. B. (2008). Genome-Based Analysis of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Exoribonucleases and Poly(A) Polymerases Predicts Unexpected Organellar and Exosomal Features. Genetics 179: 125-136 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Mattiacio, J. L., Read, L. K. (2008). Roles for TbDSS-1 in RNA surveillance and decay of maturation by-products from the 12S rRNA locus. Nucleic Acids Res 36: 319-329 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Forner, J., Weber, B., Thuss, S., Wildum, S., Binder, S. (2007). Mapping of mitochondrial mRNA termini in Arabidopsis thaliana: t-elements contribute to 5' and 3' end formation. Nucleic Acids Res 35: 3676-3692 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hazle, T., Bonen, L. (2007). Comparative Analysis of Sequences Preceding Protein-Coding Mitochondrial Genes in Flowering Plants. Mol Biol Evol 24: 1101-1112 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»