Unknown transcriptional/post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms elucidated

January 16, 2023

Suppressing accumulation of transcripts promoted by intergenic splicing

The RIKEN CSRS has revealed how plants' accumulation of polycistronic readthrough transcripts (aberrant mRNAs transcribed from multiple genes) promoted by intergenic splicing is suppressed.

In general, eukaryotes produce monocistronic transcripts encoding one protein from one gene, whereas, on rear occasions, they create polycistronic readthrough transcripts encoding multiple proteins from several neighboring genes.

In this study, the research team discovered using long-read sequencing technology that nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), an mRNA quality control mechanism, selectively eliminates polycistronic readthrough transcripts from cells in young seedlings of Arabidopsis.

The findings of this study would contribute not only to eliminating toxicity resulting from the accumulation of aberrant transcripts but to developing technologies useful for plant biomass processing.

Original article

Communications Biology doi:10.1038/s42003-022-04348-y

Y. Kurihara*, Y. Makita*, M. Kawauchi, A. Kageyama, T. Kuriyama, M. Matsui, *These authors are equal contributions

"Intergenic splicing-stimulated transcriptional readthrough is suppressed by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in Arabidopsis".

Contact

Yukio Kurihara; Visiting Scientist
Yuko Makita; Visiting Scientist
Minami Matsui; Group Director
Synthetic Genomics Research Group