The poly(A) tail blocks RDR6 from converting self mRNAs into substrates for gene silencing

Kyungmin Baeg; Hiro-Oki Iwakawa; Yukihide Tomari

doi:10.1038/nplants.2017.36

The poly(A) tail blocks RDR6 from converting self mRNAs into substrates for gene silencing

Nat Plants. 2017 Mar 20:3:17036. doi: 10.1038/nplants.2017.36.

Authors

Kyungmin Baeg^{1

2}, Hiro-Oki Iwakawa^{1

2}, Yukihide Tomari^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan.
² Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0032, Japan.

PMID: 28319057
DOI: 10.1038/nplants.2017.36

Abstract

It remains unclear how post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) in plants discriminates aberrant RNAs from canonical messenger RNAs (mRNAs). The key step of plant PTGS is the conversion of aberrant RNAs into double-stranded RNAs by RNA-DEPENDENT RNA POLYMERASE6 (RDR6). Here, we show that RDR6 itself selects aberrant poly(A)-less mRNAs over canonical polyadenylated mRNAs as templates at the initiation step of complementary strand synthesis. This mechanism can be viewed as an innate safeguard against 'self-attack' by PTGS.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Arabidopsis / genetics*
Arabidopsis Proteins / genetics*
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant / genetics
Gene Silencing / physiology
RNA, Messenger / genetics*
RNA, Plant / genetics
RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase / genetics

Substances

Arabidopsis Proteins
RNA, Messenger
RNA, Plant
RDR6 protein, Arabidopsis
RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase