Plant Genomics and Plant Science

Biography

Biography: Umme Qulsum

Abstract

Arabidopsis is the most useful model plants in molecular biology. RNA editing is a post-transcriptional modification of genes that commonly occur in plant plastids and mitochondria. Alternative splicing is a post and co-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. In recent studies, it is found that the PPR family proteins are involved in RNA editing in plants. In flowering plants, not only PPR but also non-PPR proteins like MORF, ORRM and OZ participate in multiple RNA editing events. The PPR–RNA complex is organized into the editosome with several additional non-PPR protein factors. The aim of this study is to find out the frequency and extends of tissue-specific RNA editing events and expression of alternative splicing of these genes and their effect on protein structure and functionality. We collected samples of different tissues of different developmental stages of Arabidopsis. Gene expression analysis and sequencing were performed. I-TASSER was used for protein modulation study. We found editing events in eleven genes out of twelve of PPR family genes and only one genes out of nine of ZNF family genes. We found nine types of RNA editing events these events included possible intra-base transitions: C-to-U, U-to-C, A-to-I, A-to-C, A-to-U, G-to-A, G-to-C, U-to-A and U-to-G in targeted genes. Most of the editing events in seedling and leaf and less in stem tissues. In our study, most of the alternative splicing events were found in seedling and leaf. We also detected seven unannotated and new alternatively spliced isoforms among these five PPR and two ZNF genes that were confirmed by PCR and sequencing. RNA editing machinery may play important role in proteins diversity and functionality thus ultimately affecting plant physiology. This study suggests that tissue-specific expression of different alternatively spliced transcript happen even in different developmental stages.