|
Advertisement | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 283, Issue 12, 7314-7319, March 21, 2008
Cross-competition in Editing of Chloroplast RNA Transcripts in Vitro Implicates Sharing of Trans-factors between Different C Targets*
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ABSTRACT |
|---|
|
|
|---|
U plant organellar RNA editing is required for the translation of evolutionarily conserved and functional proteins. 28 different C targets of RNA editing have been identified in maize chloroplasts, and hundreds of Cs are edited in mitochondria. Mutant analysis in Arabidopsis has indicated that absence of a single site-specific recognition protein can result in loss of editing of a single C target, raising the possibility that each C target requires a recognition protein. Here we show that transcripts encompassing two editing sites, ZMrpoB C467 and ZMrps14 C80, can compete editing activity from each other in vitro despite limited sequence similarity. The signal causing competition overlaps a 5'-cis element required for editing efficiency. A single five-nucleotide mutation spanning the region from –20 to –16 relative to the edited C of rpoB C467 is sufficient to eliminate its substrate editing as well as its ability to compete editing activity from rps14 C80 substrates. A corresponding mutation in an rps14 C80 competitor likewise eliminated its ability to compete editing activity from rpoB C467 substrates. Taken together, our results indicate that the RNA sequences mediating both editing efficiency and cross-competition are highly similar and that a common protein is involved in their editing. Sharing of trans-factors can facilitate editing of the large number of different C targets in plant organelles so that a different protein factor would not be required for every editing site. | INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
It is currently believed that the plant organellar RNA editing machinery consists of two distinct components: the cis-element, which uniquely identifies a given editing site by its sequence and structure within the transcript itself, and the trans-acting factors, which are likely to be proteins that recognize the cis-element and catalyze the editing reaction (14). The sequences surrounding all editing sites in a given organism do not show obvious similarity to each other either by direct sequence alignment or by secondary structure prediction. However, transplastomic tobacco that overexpress a fragment of maize rpoB or tobacco ndhF transcripts spanning the rpoB C467 or ndhF C290 editing sites, respectively, showed reduced editing at the cognate tobacco sites, as well as at additional sites (15), indicating that at least some cis-elements are related. These three editing sites therefore form a "cluster" affected by overexpression of transcripts carrying only one C target (Fig. 1). Furthermore, three 2–3-nt2 regions of sequence identity exist between the sites of the rpoB C473 cluster within 20 nt 5' of the edited C, when gaps are introduced in the sequences (15).
Two nuclear-encoded protein factors have been identified that are believed to be responsible for sequence recognition of editing sites in the ndhD transcript of Arabidopsis: CRR4, which is critical for ATndhD C2 editing, and CRR21, which is required for ATndhD C383 editing (16, 17). Both of these proteins are members of the pentatricopeptide repeat class of proteins, which consists of >450 members in Arabidopsis that are largely targeted to chloroplasts and/or mitochondria (18). Pentatricopeptide repeat motif-containing proteins have been implicated in additional organellar RNA processing or maturation events as well as RNA editing (19–21). As crr4 or crr21 knockouts specifically affect editing at one C target only, they are believed to be sequence recognition factors for the sites they affect. Although CRR4 and CRR21 evidently do not affect editing of multiple C targets, in vivo competition data regarding other editing sites as well as our data from in vitro analysis presented here suggest that trans-factors required for editing of multiple C targets will be described in the future. Possibly genes encoding such trans-factors rarely emerge in mutant screens because their loss of function would often have lethal consequences.
An in vitro editing assay has been developed to study cis-elements near C targets of editing. Editing of RNA substrates, transcribed in vitro, occurs in extracts prepared from isolated chloroplasts (22, 23). A major benefit of this strategy for studying the editing machinery is that many mutant substrates can be studied for editing efficiency at the same time, under controlled conditions. Alternatively, cis-elements can be studied in vivo in transgenic plants; however, this technique is very limited in terms of the number of substrates that can be tested by the amount of time and expense required to generate such transgenic plants, as well as variability due to transformation and regeneration. The in vitro strategy has previously been used in our laboratory to identify cis-elements of the tobacco rpoB C473 and psbE C214 editing sites (23–25).
|
| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Preparation of Editing Competent Maize Extracts—Maize chloroplast extracts were prepared from leaves of 7–10-day-old plants as described previously (24). Leaf tissue was homogenized, and intact chloroplasts were isolated by gradient sedimentation using Percoll (Amersham Biosciences). Buffers and conditions for chloroplast isolation, extraction, and dialysis were as described previously (23). Extracts contained 2–4 µg/µl protein.
In Vitro Editing Reaction—Editing reactions for substrate editing without competitor RNAs were as described previously (23), using 0.1 fmol of RNA and 4 µl of extract. For competition experiments, competitor RNAs were added to the editing reaction mixture prior to the addition of 10 fmol of RNA substrate. Following incubation to allow editing, 1 µl of the editing reaction mixture was used for cDNA synthesis and subsequent PCR amplification as in Ref. 23. All substrates, with the exception of the two competition substrates, used the KS primer for RT and SK and KS primers for PCR. For competition experiments, RT of the substrate RNA used the SK(-s) primer, and the subsequent PCR used KS(-s) and SK(-s) primers. The pTri competitor is a 128-nt control transcript containing a fragment of conserved human 18 S rRNA sequence unrelated to any known editing site and is transcribed from a template included with the T7MEGAshortscript kit (Ambion).
Poisoned Primer Extension—To determine the editing efficiency in a given reaction, poisoned primer extension was performed as described previously (23). Different oligonucleotides were used for extension of substrates from each site, depending on the presence of mutations either 5' or 3' of the edited C, and are listed in supplemental Table S1.
|
|
| RESULTS |
|---|
|
|
|---|
A 131-nt ZMrps14 C80 substrate (100 nt upstream and 30 nt downstream) was edited in vitro to 28 ± 5%. Substrates containing 5' and 3' truncations of the 131-nt substrate were assayed for editing efficiency to determine the minimal sequence required for editing to proceed (Fig. 3). Truncation substrates containing at least 20-nt 5' and at least 5-nts 3' retained editing efficiency, but substrates with less than 20-nt 5' had a marked decrease in editing efficiency.
As determined above, the critical cis-elements directing editing of both rpoB C467 and rps14 C80 lie within 20-nt 5' of the target C, and some sequence further 5' or on the 3' side of the target may also be involved in recognition. To further explore the sequence requirements for editing of each substrate, we made single nucleotide mutations at each position within the –20/+6 windows for each site by altering the wild-type sequence to the complementary nucleotide, and each was assayed for editability (Fig. 4). The relative editing efficiency for each substrate was calculated. For rpoB C467, 35% of the mutated substrates had reduced editing efficiency, 35% had enhanced editing efficiency, and 30% had no effect. Of the rps14 C80 mutated substrates, 58% had reduced editing efficiency, 8% had enhanced editing efficiency, and 35% had no effect.
The raw (unaligned) comparison between the two critical windows reveals six common positions that negatively affect editing when mutated, and only three of these are the same nucleotide in both sequences. Using gaps to align the rpoB C467 and rps14 C80 editing sites, as reported by Ref. 15, reveals six positions in common that negatively affect editing when mutated, and five of these six are the same nucleotide in both sequences (Fig. 4C).
To further investigate cis-elements affecting editing and the similarity between the rpoB C467 and rps14 C80 sites, we performed in vitro competition experiments. First, we established that 100-fold self-competitor was sufficient to reduce editing of rpoB C467 substrate to virtually undetectable levels, whereas inclusion of pTri 18 S RNA, the 128-nt control transcript of unrelated sequence, did not reduce editing of C467. Cross-competition was observed; a 100-fold amount of rpoB C467 substrate reduced rps14 C80 substrate editing to a similarly low level as self-competitor, and rps14 C80 reciprocally reduced rpoB C467 editing.
Fig. 5A shows the results of self-competition experiments using rpoB C467 substrate and rpoB C467 wild-type and multiple-nt mutated competitors. Three 5-nt mutated competitors had reduced competition relative to wild-type, and in the case of competition with the m20– sequence, editing efficiency of the substrate was >80% relative to the no-competitor and pTri controls. In the case of rpoB cross-competition of rps14 C80 substrate editing, four of the 5-nt mutated competitors exhibited reduced competition relative to wild-type competitors (Fig. 5B). Three of these also showed reduced competition of the rpoB C467 substrate (Fig. 5A). The same 5-nt mutation had the largest effect on competition and completely eliminated the ability of the rpoB C467 competitor to reduce editing of rps14 C80. Furthermore, when the –20 to –16 region of the rps14 C80 competitor was mutated, cross-competition was likewise eliminated (Fig. 6).
|
|
Comparison of the psbL transcripts from maize and tobacco reveals several sequence differences upstream of the editing site in addition to the C/U editing site difference itself (Fig. 7A). At the 1000-fold competitor-to-substrate ratio needed to observe competition by psbL substrates, a competitor containing the tobacco sequence was able to reduce editing of rpoB C467 and rps14 C80 substrates more efficiently than one containing the maize sequence (Fig. 7C). Two of the differences between the tobacco and maize psbL sequences, at the –16 and –11 positions of the maize transcript, relative to the editing site, are changes in the conserved sequence elements identified in the tobacco editing site cluster. Restoration of these conserved positions in maize psbL C2 competitors (Fig. 7B) enhanced rpoB C467 competition slightly but not to the level of competition exerted by the tobacco psbL C2 competitor (Fig. 7C). The improvement in competition of by the mutated maize competitors was higher for rpoB C467 substrate than for rps14 C80 substrate. Mutating the tobacco psbL competitor in the region corresponding to the rpoB m20– mutant competitor likewise eliminated its ability to compete editing activity from either rpoB C467 or rps14 C80 substrates (Fig. 7C).
|
|
| DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Our report is the first to demonstrate cross-competition between transcripts of two different editing sites in vitro. The cross-competition of maize rpoB C467 and rps14 C80 substrates in vitro is consistent with our prior finding of cross-competition of the orthologous editing sites in vivo by overexpression of rpoB transgene transcripts in tobacco transplastomic plants (15).
We have demonstrated that psbL competitors carrying either a C or a U at the location of the edited nucleotide are equally effective in reducing editing of rpoB C467 and rps14 C 80 in maize extracts in vitro. The effectiveness of either C-containing or U-containing competitors was not unexpected given that ndhF transgene transcripts carrying either C or U at the editing site were effective competitors of endogenous ndhF transcript editing in transplastomic tobacco plants in vivo (30). Evidently, both unedited and edited transcripts can be recognized by trans-factors.
Cross-competition between editing sites in vivo and in vitro reveals similarities in cis-elements between sequences surrounding different C targets of editing. The simplest explanation for cross-competition would be the existence of a single trans-factor that recognizes these similar editing sites. This hypothesis is an attractive explanation for the capability of the plant to recognize hundreds of different Cs with a high degree of specificity. Imperfect selectivity of a trans-factor in recognition of C targets could explain how a new T
C mutation could be corrected at the transcript level in the plant in which it first arises, leading to evolutionary improvement of editing efficiency at new targets through modification of trans-factors to recognize multiple targets. Alternatively, there could be different factors, perhaps evolutionarily related, that recognize each editing site, perhaps with different efficiencies. Transcripts carrying one editing site could possibly bind both factors, resulting in reduced editing extent of two different C targets when the competitor transcript is in great excess.
A study of an Arabidopsis editing mutant has shown that the lack of a single trans-factor, CRR4, can prevent editing of the ATndhD C2 target (16) and that CRR4 specifically binds to an RNA fragment containing ndhD C2 (17). In tobacco, editing of ndhD C2 is affected by overexpression of an ndhF transgene, and sequences 5' to both C targets exhibit some similarity, suggesting that the two sites may share the same or related trans-factors. The Arabidopsis ndhF C290 and ndhD C2 editing sites also exhibit 5' sequence similarity, but no effect on ndhF C290 editing in the ndhD C2 editing-deficient mutant was detected (16). Several hypotheses can be created to explain these apparently contradictory findings. First, possibly an ortholog of CRR4 in tobacco can bind both to ndhD C2 and to the ndhF C290 site, and thus ndhF C290 editing would be reduced in the presence of excess ndhF transcript. Second, there may be a trans-factor that is shared between ndhF C290 and ndhF C290 editing sites that is not an ortholog of CRR4 but is a factor that remains to be discovered. If such a factor is in limiting quantities and is bound by ndhF transcript, editing of ndhD C2 could be reduced even if a CRR4 ortholog only binds to ndhD transcript. Future identification of all of the components of editing complexes that act on C targets with related 5' sequence should reveal the nature of the relationships between the editing complexes responsible for converting different plant organelle Cs to Us.
| FOOTNOTES |
|---|
The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains a supplemental table. ![]()
This article was selected as a Paper of the Week. ![]()
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Biotech Bldg., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. Tel.: 607-254-4833; Fax: 607-255-6249; E-mail: mrh5{at}cornell.edu.
2 The abbreviations used are: nt, nucleotide; RT-PCR, reverse transcription-PCR; WT, wild-type. ![]()
3 ZMrpoB C467, C at nt 467 from A of ATG of the Zea mays rpoB gene, nomenclature for editing sites as proposed by Hayes et al. (24). ![]()
| REFERENCES |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
J. C. Robbins, W. P. Heller, and M. R. Hanson A comparative genomics approach identifies a PPR-DYW protein that is essential for C-to-U editing of the Arabidopsis chloroplast accD transcript RNA, June 1, 2009; 15(6): 1142 - 1153. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. Zehrmann, D. Verbitskiy, J. A. van der Merwe, A. Brennicke, and M. Takenaka A DYW Domain-Containing Pentatricopeptide Repeat Protein Is Required for RNA Editing at Multiple Sites in Mitochondria of Arabidopsis thaliana PLANT CELL, February 1, 2009; 21(2): 558 - 567. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
D. Verbitskiy, J. A. van der Merwe, A. Zehrmann, A. Brennicke, and M. Takenaka Multiple Specificity Recognition Motifs Enhance Plant Mitochondrial RNA Editing in Vitro J. Biol. Chem., September 5, 2008; 283(36): 24374 - 24381. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. Rudinger, M. Polsakiewicz, and V. Knoop Organellar RNA Editing and Plant-Specific Extensions of Pentatricopeptide Repeat Proteins in Jungermanniid but not in Marchantiid Liverworts Mol. Biol. Evol., July 1, 2008; 25(7): 1405 - 1414. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| All ASBMB Journals | Molecular and Cellular Proteomics |
| Journal of Lipid Research | ASBMB Today |