Skip to main content
PMC home page
The Plant Cell logoLink to The Plant Cell
. 1996 Jan;8(1):107–117. doi: 10.1105/tpc.8.1.107

Incomplete editing of rps12 transcripts results in the synthesis of polymorphic polypeptides in plant mitochondria.

C G Phreaner 1, M A Williams 1, R M Mulligan 1
PMCID: PMC161085  PMID: 8597655

Abstract

C-to-U editing causes specific nucleotide changes in plant mitochondrial nRNAs that are required for the restoration of the evolutionarily conserved amino acid sequence. Transcripts for the ribosomal protein S12 gene (rps12) have six C-to-U editing sites and are highly heterogeneous as a result of incomplete editing. immunological analysis demonstrated that unedited or partially edited transcripts as well as edited mRNAs are translated. The edited rps12 translation products accumulate as ribosomal subunits, but the unedited rps12 translation products are present as unassembled subunits and are not detected in the ribosomes. Thus, gene expression is polymorphic as a result of incomplete C-to-U editing, and aberrant polypeptides are present from the translation of these mRNAs. However, because only the edited translation products accumulate in mitochondrial ribosomes, the overall expression of rps12 is rendered coherent by the selection

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (3.4 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Berry J. O., Carr J. P., Klessig D. F. mRNAs encoding ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase remain bound to polysomes but are not translated in amaranth seedlings transferred to darkness. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Jun;85(12):4190–4194. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.12.4190. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Brennicke A., Grohmann L., Hiesel R., Knoop V., Schuster W. The mitochondrial genome on its way to the nucleus: different stages of gene transfer in higher plants. FEBS Lett. 1993 Jun 28;325(1-2):140–145. doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(93)81430-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bégu D., Graves P. V., Domec C., Arselin G., Litvak S., Araya A. RNA editing of wheat mitochondrial ATP synthase subunit 9: direct protein and cDNA sequencing. Plant Cell. 1990 Dec;2(12):1283–1290. doi: 10.1105/tpc.2.12.1283. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Covello P. S., Gray M. W. Differences in editing at homologous sites in messenger RNAs from angiosperm mitochondria. Nucleic Acids Res. 1990 Sep 11;18(17):5189–5196. doi: 10.1093/nar/18.17.5189. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Covello P. S., Gray M. W. RNA editing in plant mitochondria. Nature. 1989 Oct 19;341(6243):662–666. doi: 10.1038/341662a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Gray M. W., Covello P. S. RNA editing in plant mitochondria and chloroplasts. FASEB J. 1993 Jan;7(1):64–71. doi: 10.1096/fasebj.7.1.8422976. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Grohmann L., Thieck O., Herz U., Schröder W., Brennicke A. Translation of nad9 mRNAs in mitochondria from Solanum tuberosum is restricted to completely edited transcripts. Nucleic Acids Res. 1994 Aug 25;22(16):3304–3311. doi: 10.1093/nar/22.16.3304. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Gualberto J. M., Bonnard G., Lamattina L., Grienenberger J. M. Expression of the wheat mitochondrial nad3-rps12 transcription unit: correlation between editing and mRNA maturation. Plant Cell. 1991 Oct;3(10):1109–1120. doi: 10.1105/tpc.3.10.1109. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Hiesel R., Wissinger B., Schuster W., Brennicke A. RNA editing in plant mitochondria. Science. 1989 Dec 22;246(4937):1632–1634. doi: 10.1126/science.2480644. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Kemble R. J., Gunn R. E., Flavell R. B. Classification of Normal and Male-Sterile Cytoplasms in Maize. II. Electrophoretic Analysis of DNA Species in Mitochondria. Genetics. 1980 Jun;95(2):451–458. doi: 10.1093/genetics/95.2.451. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Kempken F., Mullen J. A., Pring D. R., Tang H. V. RNA editing of sorghum mitochondrial atp6 transcripts changes 15 amino acids and generates a carboxy-terminus identical to yeast. Curr Genet. 1991 Nov;20(5):417–422. doi: 10.1007/BF00317071. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Klein R. R., Mason H. S., Mullet J. E. Light-regulated translation of chloroplast proteins. I. Transcripts of psaA-psaB, psbA, and rbcL are associated with polysomes in dark-grown and illuminated barley seedlings. J Cell Biol. 1988 Feb;106(2):289–301. doi: 10.1083/jcb.106.2.289. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Lamattina L., Grienenberger J. M. RNA editing of the transcript coding for subunit 4 of NADH dehydrogenase in wheat mitochondria: uneven distribution of the editing sites among the four exons. Nucleic Acids Res. 1991 Jun 25;19(12):3275–3282. doi: 10.1093/nar/19.12.3275. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Lu B., Hanson M. R. A single homogeneous form of ATP6 protein accumulates in petunia mitochondria despite the presence of differentially edited atp6 transcripts. Plant Cell. 1994 Dec;6(12):1955–1968. doi: 10.1105/tpc.6.12.1955. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Lu B., Hanson M. R. A single nuclear gene specifies the abundance and extent of RNA editing of a plant mitochondrial transcript. Nucleic Acids Res. 1992 Nov 11;20(21):5699–5703. doi: 10.1093/nar/20.21.5699. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Mulligan R. M., Leon P., Walbot V. Transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of maize mitochondrial gene expression. Mol Cell Biol. 1991 Jan;11(1):533–543. doi: 10.1128/mcb.11.1.533. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Nugent J. M., Palmer J. D. RNA-mediated transfer of the gene coxII from the mitochondrion to the nucleus during flowering plant evolution. Cell. 1991 Aug 9;66(3):473–481. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(81)90011-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Rish S. Y., Breiman A. RNA editing of the barley (Hordeum vulgare) mitochondrial ATP synthase subunit 9. Plant Mol Biol. 1993 Jul;22(4):711–714. doi: 10.1007/BF00047412. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Schuster W., Ternes R., Knoop V., Hiesel R., Wissinger B., Brennicke A. Distribution of RNA editing sites in Oenothera mitochondrial mRNAs and rRNAs. Curr Genet. 1991 Nov;20(5):397–404. doi: 10.1007/BF00317068. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Schuster W., Wissinger B., Unseld M., Brennicke A. Transcripts of the NADH-dehydrogenase subunit 3 gene are differentially edited in Oenothera mitochondria. EMBO J. 1990 Jan;9(1):263–269. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1990.tb08104.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Sutton C. A., Conklin P. L., Pruitt K. D., Hanson M. R. Editing of pre-mRNAs can occur before cis- and trans-splicing in Petunia mitochondria. Mol Cell Biol. 1991 Aug;11(8):4274–4277. doi: 10.1128/mcb.11.8.4274. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Yang A. J., Mulligan R. M. RNA editing intermediates of cox2 transcripts in maize mitochondria. Mol Cell Biol. 1991 Aug;11(8):4278–4281. doi: 10.1128/mcb.11.8.4278. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Plant Cell are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES