TY - JOUR

T1 - Light-Dependent Translation Change of Arabidopsis psbA Correlates with RNA Structure Alterations at the Translation Initiation Region

AU - Gawroński, Piotr

AU - Enroth, Christel

AU - Kindgren, Peter

AU - Marquardt, Sebastian

AU - Karpiński, Stanisław

AU - Leister, Dario

AU - Jensen, Poul Erik

AU - Vinther, Jeppe

AU - Scharff, Lars B

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - mRNA secondary structure influences translation. Proteins that modulate the mRNA secondary structure around the translation initiation region may regulate translation in plastids. To test this hypothesis, we exposed Arabidopsis thaliana to high light, which induces translation of psbA mRNA encoding the D1 subunit of photosystem II. We assayed translation by ribosome profiling and applied two complementary methods to analyze in vivo RNA secondary structure: DMS-MaPseq and SHAPE-seq. We detected increased accessibility of the translation initiation region of psbA after high light treatment, likely contributing to the observed increase in translation by facilitating translation initiation. Furthermore, we identified the footprint of a putative regulatory protein in the 5' UTR of psbA at a position where occlusion of the nucleotide sequence would cause the structure of the translation initiation region to open up, thereby facilitating ribosome access. Moreover, we show that other plastid genes with weak Shine-Dalgarno sequences (SD) are likely to exhibit psbA-like regulation, while those with strong SDs do not. This supports the idea that changes in mRNA secondary structure might represent a general mechanism for translational regulation of psbA and other plastid genes.

AB - mRNA secondary structure influences translation. Proteins that modulate the mRNA secondary structure around the translation initiation region may regulate translation in plastids. To test this hypothesis, we exposed Arabidopsis thaliana to high light, which induces translation of psbA mRNA encoding the D1 subunit of photosystem II. We assayed translation by ribosome profiling and applied two complementary methods to analyze in vivo RNA secondary structure: DMS-MaPseq and SHAPE-seq. We detected increased accessibility of the translation initiation region of psbA after high light treatment, likely contributing to the observed increase in translation by facilitating translation initiation. Furthermore, we identified the footprint of a putative regulatory protein in the 5' UTR of psbA at a position where occlusion of the nucleotide sequence would cause the structure of the translation initiation region to open up, thereby facilitating ribosome access. Moreover, we show that other plastid genes with weak Shine-Dalgarno sequences (SD) are likely to exhibit psbA-like regulation, while those with strong SDs do not. This supports the idea that changes in mRNA secondary structure might represent a general mechanism for translational regulation of psbA and other plastid genes.

U2 - 10.3390/cells10020322

DO - 10.3390/cells10020322

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33557293

VL - 10

JO - Cells

JF - Cells

SN - 2073-4409

IS - 2

M1 - 322

ER -