title: mRNA capping enzyme requirement for Caenorhabditis elegans viability.
abstract: Capping of the initiated 5' ends of RNA polymerase II products is evolutionarily and functionally conserved from yeasts to humans. The m(7)GpppN cap promotes RNA stability, processing, transport, and translation. Deletion of capping enzymes in yeasts was shown to be lethal due to rapid exonucleolytic degradation of uncapped transcripts or failure of capped but unmethylated RNA to initiate protein synthesis. Using RNA interference and Caenorhabditis elegans we have found that RNA capping is also essential for metazoan viability. C. elegans bifunctional capping enzyme was cloned, and capping activity by the expressed protein as well as growth complementation of yeast deletion strains missing either RNA triphosphatase or guanylyltransferase required terminal sequences not present in the previously isolated cel-1 clone. By RNA interference analysis we show that cel-1 is required for embryogenesis. cel-1(RNAi) embryos formed cytoplasmic granules characteristic of a phenocluster of RNA processing genes and died early in development.
authors.affiliation: Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine and Graduate Program in Biochemistry, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway 08854, USA.
authors.forename: Priya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Piano
authors.forename: Aaron J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Shatkin
mesh_terms: D017766:Acid Anhydride Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000378:metabolism; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000378:metabolism; D004330:Drosophila; D017353:Gene Deletion; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D005982:Glutathione Transferase / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009713:Nucleotidyltransferases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D010641:Phenotype; D010957:Plasmids / Q000378:metabolism; D034622:RNA Interference; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D000098556:mRNA Guanylyltransferases
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; D005982:Glutathione Transferase; D009713:Nucleotidyltransferases; C020842:guanylyltransferase; D000098556:mRNA Guanylyltransferases; D017766:Acid Anhydride Hydrolases; C023090:RNA triphosphatase