MCB
Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental material
Right arrow Other Versions of this Article:
MCB.00128-07v1
27/11/3970    most recent
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 Eulalio, A.
Right arrow Articles by Izaurralde, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Eulalio, A.
Right arrow Articles by Izaurralde, E.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Molecular and Cellular Biology, June 2007, p. 3970-3981, Vol. 27, No. 11
0270-7306/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00128-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

P-Body Formation Is a Consequence, Not the Cause, of RNA-Mediated Gene Silencing{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Ana Eulalio, Isabelle Behm-Ansmant, Daniel Schweizer, and Elisa Izaurralde*

MPI for Developmental Biology, Spemannstrasse 35, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany

Received 19 January 2007/ Returned for modification 16 February 2007/ Accepted 19 March 2007

P bodies are cytoplasmic domains that contain proteins involved in diverse posttranscriptional processes, such as mRNA degradation, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), translational repression, and RNA-mediated gene silencing. The localization of these proteins and their targets in P bodies raises the question of whether their spatial concentration in discrete cytoplasmic domains is required for posttranscriptional gene regulation. We show that processes such as mRNA decay, NMD, and RNA-mediated gene silencing are functional in cells lacking detectable microscopic P bodies. Although P bodies are not required for silencing, blocking small interfering RNA or microRNA silencing pathways at any step prevents P-body formation, indicating that P bodies arise as a consequence of silencing. Consistently, we show that releasing mRNAs from polysomes is insufficient to trigger P-body assembly: polysome-free mRNAs must enter silencing and/or decapping pathways to nucleate P bodies. Thus, even though P-body components play crucial roles in mRNA silencing and decay, aggregation into P bodies is not required for function but is instead a consequence of their activity.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Spemannstrasse 35, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany. Phone: 49-70 71-601-1350. Fax: 49-70 71-601-1353. E-mail: elisa.izaurralde{at}tuebingen.mpg.de

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 2 April 2007.

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

Molecular and Cellular Biology, June 2007, p. 3970-3981, Vol. 27, No. 11
0270-7306/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00128-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:



Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
J. Bacteriol. J. Virol. Eukaryot. Cell
Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. Clin. Vaccine Immunol. All ASM Journals

Copyright © 2007 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.