Fig. 5.

Transcripts with poorly structured 3′ UTR are more stable in Arabidopsis. a Comparison of Gini index between the short half-life and long half-life genes in WT for Arabidopsis (RNA decay data, GSE86361). P value by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. b Comparison of RSS of 3′ UTRs (Gini index) between the longer half-life (the top 10% of log₂(sov/WT)) and shorter half-life (the bottom 10% of log₂(sov/WT)) genes in sov compared to WT in Arabidopsis (RNA decay data, GSE86361). P value by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. c RSS modeling for randomly selected transcripts with the high-Gini and low-Gini 3′ UTRs. The DMS signals of A and C residues were color-coded and U/G bases were marked in gray. d–f Mean Gini index (d), expression level (RPKM) (e), and half-life (log₁₀(min)) (f) of the gene examples in c. g A proposed model for RSS of 3′ UTR in regulating gene expression. This model shows that RNA transcripts possessing highly structured 3′ UTR are susceptible to degradation by 3′–5′ exoribonuclease SOV. Conversely, transcripts with less structured 3′ UTR could evade from the degradation, thereby exhibiting enhanced stability and expression