The 30th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR 2019)

517 / 2019-03-01 16:59:53

AtPABs: G-content associated poly(A)-binding landscape and roles in enhancing translational efficiency

poly(A) tails; poly(A)-binding proteins; binding efficiency; guanosine content; mRNA stability; translational efficiency; Arabidopsis

Plenary track > RNA Biology

Polyadenylation plays a key role in producing mature mRNAs. Prevailing dogma
holds that poly(A)-tailed mRNAs are uniformly bound by poly(A)-binding proteins
(PABs). Here, we characterized the RNA-binding landscape of three broadly
expressed PABs in Arabidopsis thaliana. We observed substantial variation in the
AtPAB-binding efficiency among mRNAs, and this can be partly explained by the
guanosine content of poly(A) tails. Genes with stronger AtPAB binding exhibited a
greater reduction in translational efficiency in the atpab mutants, explaining the
mutant phenotype of abnormal root hair development. Our study paves the way for a
better understanding of poly(A) tail-associated regulation of gene expression.