The molecular mechanism of mRNA degradation in the chloroplast consists of sequential events including endonucleolytic cleavage, the addition of poly(A)-rich sequences to the endonucleolytic cleavage products, and exonucleolytic degradation by polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase). In Escherichia coli, polyadenylation is performed mainly by poly(A)-polymerase (PAP) I or by PNPase in its absence...

The RNA-binding protein AUF1 binds AU-rich elements in 3'-untranslated regions to regulate mRNA degradation and/or translation. Many of these mRNAs are predicted microRNA targets as well. An emerging theme in post-transcriptional control of gene expression is that RNA-binding proteins and microRNAs co-regulate mRNAs. Recent experiments and bioinformatic analyses suggest this type of co-regulati...

Using reporter gene constructs, consisting of the bacterial uidA (GUS) coding region flanked by the 5' and 3' regions of the Chlamydomonas rbcL and psaB genes, respectively, we studied the degradation of mRNAs in the chloroplast of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in vivo. Extending the 5' terminus of transcripts of the reporter gene by more than 6 nucleotides triggered rapid degradation. Placing a po...

Forty years have passed since the dramatic identification of mRNA, the unstable carrier of genetic information from DNA to protein (15, 48, 56). During the last decade, there have been scores of papers and reviews that assume that RNase E is the central enzyme for degradation of mRNA. (There have been hundreds of papers and many reviews on RNase E and mRNA degradation, with at least 60 just in ...

Bacterial adaptation involves extensive cellular reorganization. In particular, growth rate adjustments are associated with substantial modifications of gene expression and mRNA abundance. In this work we aimed to assess the role of mRNA degradation during such variations. A genome-wide transcriptomic-based method was used to determine mRNA half-lives. The model bacterium Lactococcus lactis was...

The virion host shutoff (vhs) protein of herpes simplex virus type 1 causes the degradation of host and viral mRNA immediately upon infection of permissive cells. vhs can interact with VP16 through a 20-amino-acid binding domain, and viruses containing a deletion of this VP16-binding domain of vhs (Delta20) and a corresponding marker rescue (Delta20R) were constructed and characterized. Transie...

Control of gene expression in trypanosomes relies almost exclusively on post-transcriptional mechanisms. Trypanosomes have the normal enzymes for mRNA decay: both the exosome and a 5'-3'-exoribonuclease are important in the degradation of very unstable transcripts, whereas the CAF1/NOT complex plays a major role in the degradation of all mRNAs tested. Targeted RNA interference screening was use...

The importance of gene regulation in the enzootic cycle of Borrelia burgdorferi, the spirochete that causes Lyme disease, is well established. B. burgdorferi regulates gene expression in response to changes in environmental stimuli associated with changing hosts. In this study, we monitored mRNA decay in B. burgdorferi following transcriptional arrest with actinomycin D. The time-dependent deca...

Protein synthesis is one of the most complex cellular processes, involving numerous translation components that interact in multiple sequential steps. The most complex stage in protein synthesis is the initiation process. The basal set of factors required for translation initiation has been determined, and biochemical, genetic, and structural studies are now beginning to reveal details of their...